On November 16, 2006, the Chinese newspaper Youth
Weekend published some photographs about global advertising for the
American television series Prison Break starring Wentworth
Miller. The newspaper noted that a Fujian hospital is using the image
Wentworth Miller to advertise its treatment services for male prostate
problems.

On November 18, 2006, the article was translated here at this
blog with some more
photographs of Prison Break ads being added.

On November 30, 2006, Apple
Daily has an article on this story. Here is the last
paragraph: "Based upon Wentworth's current popularity, he could easily
get a few million American dollars for an ad. So how did he become an
ambassador for prostate diseases? It is likely that he does not know
about it. But over the last two days, foreign entertainment websites
are covering this story widely. So it is likely that the Fujian Guliu
Hospital may be sued if they keep using this ad."

[119] The
Decline of American Elitism (11/30/2006) (Observe
China; essay by Cao Changqing)

[in partial translation]

There
are any number of theories about democracy. Simply put, democracy is
about giving the people to choose through periodic fair elections . An
important factor in election is public opinion, and the most important
channel that includes public opinion is "media." Just about
everyone uses television, newspapers, radio and the increasingly popular
news websites.

... There have been
tremendous changes in the American media recently ... especially among the
left-wing newspapers ...

Of the daily
circulation at the four top newspapers, the right-wing The Wall Street
Journal fell 1.9% while retaining the position of top newspaper (2.04
million). Although USA TODAY has 2.27 million in circulation, many are
gift copies at hotels and it is not considered a "serious
newspaper" because it is more about sports and entertainment. The
left-wing New York Times fell 3.5% to 1.08 million copies, just over half of
the number at The Wall Street Journal. The Los Angeles Times, which is
even more left-wing that the New York Times, fell 8% to 770,000
copies. The center-left Washington Post fell 3.3% to 650,000
copies. The other three left-wing newspapers in the top 10 also went
down. Miami Herald fell 8.8% to 260,000; the San Francisco Chronicle
fell 5.3% to 370,000; the Boston Globe fell 6.7% to 380,000. Meanwhile
conservative media tycoon Rupert Murdoch's New York Post continued to
perform well, increasing 6.1% to 700,000 and surpassing the Washington Post
to become the fifth largest newspaper in the United States.

For the record, here are the data on September
30, 2006 from the Audit
Bureau of Circulation (ABC's FAS-FAX ending September 30, 2006):

You can try to reconcile these numbers with Cao
Changqing's article. (Please compare the numbers carefully!!!) Here is a question: Even if you decided to write an
article about the ascendancy of the right-wing newspapers over their left-wing
rivals, could you have conceivably written the article above (given the Audit Bureau of
Circulations data)?

The facts are: the numbers for the right-wing Wall Street Journal and New York
Post are exactly what the ABC numbers are, but the numbers for the 'left-wing'
New York Times and Los Angeles Times and the 'central/left-wing' Washington
Post are way understated. Cao Changqing must be reading a different set
of books altogether. And he fails to mention that the New York Daily
News is ahead of the New York Post, and neither NYDN nor NYP could possibly be
considered as "serious newspapers" just as USA TODAY is not.
Still, this is the kind of stuff that passes as a meaningful analysis of
American media.

P.S. Someone asked: "So who is Cao
Changqing?" I refer you to Clean
Government Is Not A Core Value For Democracy for an
illustration. There's much much much more about Cao Changqing but you can look it up
yourself. Such is the tristesse of the so-called independent
overseas Chinese media.

[118] Michael
Chang and Ding Junhui (11/30/2006) (Apple
Daily; column of Kong Jiesheng) Ding Junhui is China's snooker
prodigy. Previously, he said: "How shall I choose between the
Asian Games at Doha versus the British Open? I would choose the latter
because the level of competition is a lot higher." This angered
Chinese sports officials who accused him of "ignoring national
interests and therefore quite irresponsible!"

Unlike NBA star Yao Ming and track star Liu Xiang, Ding Junhui did not come
out of the national sports program in China. Previously, he had
already won an Asian Games gold for China. This time, China Youth
Daily wrote: "Although Ding Junhui was not nurtured under the national
system, who would know him if he were not a Chinese national?"
The article then went on to invoke tennis player Michael Chang. The
latter is a Chinese American, but the Chinese treats him as an outsider
while the mainstream American society marginalized him. The article
claimed: "That was because he did not have a true motherland."

A few days ago, Michael Chang offered his services to the China Tennis
Association to train the 2008 Beijing Olympics female tennis players.
His offer was rejected by the association officials.

Why wouldn't they accept Chang? That is a long story. In 1989
when he won the French Open, he was only 18 [note: actually 17 years 3
months old]. At the time, the June 4th massacre had just occurred in
Beijing and the whole world was watching the fate of the Chinese people.

In winning the championship, Chang's thoughts were that this was an
unprecedented moment in the history of the French Open. There was no
applause. The crowd was totally silent. Chang's speech was:
"God bless the Chinese people."

So what were the chances of Michael Chang becoming the coach/trainer for the
Chinese national women's tennis team? It was zero, because techincal
competence had nothing to do with it.

民生)
will cease publication. Out of 250 employees, about 35% will be
retained in other parts of the United Daily News group.

Founded in 1978, Ming Sheng was the first newspaper in Taiwan that focused
on issues of people's livelihood (which is "Ming Sheng") such as
entertainment, consumption, etc. In 1991, it achieved its peak daily
circulation of 570,000 copies. Recently, the circulation is reported
to be somewhere between 50,000 to 80,000 copy. Losses were estimated
to be NT$200 million per year.

There are two ways to describe the causes of demise. The scholarly
approach is based upon marketplace dynamics. Many television stations
already have news programs and people also get up-to-date news reports on
the Internet. Therefore, there is no need to buy newspapers
anymore. In a declining market, the traditional media responded by
cutting back staff and typically the best talents leave first for newcomers
like Apple Daily. The political approach is: "The Government
Information Office permitted the paparazzi media to enter Taiwan and so bad money
is chasing out good money!"

My personal opinion is that if Ming Sheng cannot make a financially viable
business, then it just ought to die. PERIOD. Yes, I am cold and
unsympathetic. But I have never seen any compelling arguments to the
contrary.

[116] Church
Leaders Executed in China (11/30/2006) (Ming
Pao) Last week, the Heilongjian Supreme Court rejected the
appeal from three members of a Christian church who had been sentenced to
death for practicing their religion. Since this means that all appeals
have been exhausted, the three were executed in Shuangya city, Heilongjiang
province last week. One defendant's lawyer said: "I am very
shocked. The second trial finished on October 19. We have not
even seen the verdict document. The family was not told. Then he
was executed already. This is too much."

You may not get a huge international outcry against religious persecution in
this case. Why? You should know a little bit more about the
church -- see Religion
in China - Part 2 and Religion
in China - Part 3. The three leaders of the Three Grades Of
Servants Church were accused of intentionally murdering 20 members of the
rival Eastern Lightning church in a membership recruitment war. So
far, 63 people were determined to be involved in the case; 22 have been
sentenced to death, of which 12 have already been executed.

[115]The
Mass Show Trial In Shenzhen (11/30/2006)
(Apple
Daily) In Futian district, Shenzhen, more than two hundred
people were hauled into the street and put on trial in front of the
public. Does this remind you of the Cultural Revolution days?
Over the past three weeks, the public security bureau had been sweeping
through the karaoke bars, discos, saunas and barbers. They arrested
more than 200 prostitutes and patrons, including a number of Hong Kong
residents.

Yesterday afternoon at 3pm, the Futian public security bureau roped off the
busy intersection in Shangsha and Xiasha villages for the trial. The
wide banner read: "Futian Public Security Bureau strike at and clean up
pornographic crimes in public meeting." At around 430pm, about
fifty men and women were brought in by buses. The public security
bureau director then read off the crimes of each individual, while reading
out their information (names, date of births and address). Each person
was then sentenced to 15 days in administrative detention. Five men
were separated out for special treatment -- "The following five are
from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region." These men had
their names read out and then sentenced to 15 days in administrative
detention as well. By the way, some of the men had their heads shaved
immediately upon arrest.

Human Rights Monitor in Hong Kong said that this public trial clearly
violates the international human rights treaty against cruel, inhumane
and/or insulting treatments/punishments.

[114] An
Example of Bad Reporting Etiquette (11/29/2006) In Comment
200611#113, the validity of the list of bad Chinese reporters was
doubted. As for the female Southern Weekend reporter Wu Yuehua
involved in The
Media Story of the Soccer Commentator, it is known
that Fang Zhouzi who personally placed her on that list. What did the
reporter do? At Xinyusi,
Fang Zhouzi quoted what the reporter allegedly said about him after
interviewing him and publishing an unfavorable report.

"Interview
Fang Zhouzi???!!! What a stupid idea that our magazine came up
with! Even though they call him a public intellectual, he is more like
a public toilet! He has a filthy mouth and his intelligence quotient
is suspect. If it was up to me, I would have f**king cursed out this stupid
c**t. He is stupid for saying those things. He talked about
mistresses, but what does he know about mistresses? Damn stupid pig
(These are my personal thoughts, and do not represent our magazine).
When he got to America, the genes in his brain must have been mutated.

"...
I started some rumors. First, Fang Zhouzi's tits are fake.
Second, Fang Zhouzi's child was born without an anus due to genetic
mutation. Now I would dissent if you accuse me with starting
rumors. First, Fang Zhouzi has not let anyone see his tits.
Second, Fang Zhouzi has not let anyone see his child's anus."

[113] The
List of Bad Chinese Reporters (11/29/2006) In The
Media Story of the Soccer Commentator, former CCTV soccer commentator
Huang Jianxiang complained about the story in Southern Weekend on him.
Huang denounced the female reporter and then pointed to her presence on the
list of bad Chinese reporters as proof of her bad reputation.

What is this list of bad Chinese reporters? This list was published at
Fang Zhouzi's Xinyusi
website. The slogan of the list is "Beware of fire, beware of
thieves, beware of bad/harmful reporters." The reporters are
listed by name, organization and specialty (such as rumor mongering,
blackmail, fraud, hack, plagiarist, hired gun, rogue, etc).

Where did this list come from? Was the basis by which someone is
selected? There is no explanation. Therefore, this list may be a
good laugh but it has no validity. So maybe Fang Zhouzi or his
contributors were mad at one time or another about something that they
wrote, but this is surely more like personal quarrels rather than a
scientifically compiled listing.

The

醉人呓语
blogger pointed out that the list included Yan Lieshan of Southern Metropolis
Daily. The blogger said that to his knowledge, Yan Lieshan is an editor
and not a reporter and he does not work at Southern Metropolis Daily.

(ERA
TV) (1,068 voters age 20 or older in Taipei city were
interviewed on the evenings of November 26-27. The sample was
initially drawn randomly from the telephone directory in proportion to the
population size by administrative district. The last two digits of the
selected telephone numbers were then randomized)

(ERA
TV) (1,069 voters age 20 or older in Kaohsiung
city were interviewed on the evenings of November 26-27. The sample
was initially drawn randomly from the telephone directory in proportion to
the population size by administrative district. The last two digits of
the selected telephone numbers were then randomized)
(changes from 11/25 survey are in parentheses)
Huang Jun-yin (KMT): 41% (-2%)
Chen Chu (DPP): 26%(-1%)
Lo Chih-ming (TSU): 3%(+1%)
Don't know/undecided: 30%(+2%)

(UDN)
(932 voters in Taipei city were
interviewed on the evenings of November 24-25. The sample was
initially drawn randomly from the telephone directory. The last two digits of the
selected telephone numbers were then randomized)

(UDN) (901 voters in Kaohsiung
city were interviewed on the evenings of November 24-25. The sample
was initially drawn randomly from the telephone directory. The last two digits of
the selected telephone numbers were then randomized)
(changes from 11/19 survey are in parentheses)
Huang Jun-yin (KMT): 38% (-1%)
Chen Chu (DPP): 29%(+3%)
Lo Chih-ming (TSU): 3%(+1%)
Don't know/undecided: 29%(-3%)

[111] Chairman
Hu Jinzhu (11/29/2006) (Apple
Daily) On November 21, 2006, Xinhua released a news reporter
about Chinese national chairman celebrating the friendship between China and
India. There was a huge error in that the name of Chairman Hu Jintao (

胡
錦 濤) was
written as Hu Jinzhu (胡
錦 鑄). Since then, the
online editions of this story has been revised. However, the Baidu
cache does not know any better.
The two Xinhua editors responsible for the error were given job demerits.

The Baidu cache also lists many other similar errors, including ones that
have not been corrected (see Xinjiang
News Online, March 30, 2006 on the learning Secretary-General Hu
Jinzhu's "Eight Glories and Eight Shames"):

Recently, the most popular person on the
Internet must be Zhang Yu. There is one theory: if "hidden
rules" exist in the film/television industry, then there must be
reasons for their existence. Thus, there are reasons for them to
exist; if you break the "hidden rules," then you are wrong.

That
is an interesting theory. It is even more interesting to note that
there is a market for this theory.

According
to this theory: if you want to get a film role, you must offer your body
because that is the "hidden rule." If you want a job
promotion, you must pay bribes because that is the "hidden
rule." If an actress wants to perform in film without offering
sexual favors, then she is breaking the "hidden rule." If an
official wants to stay clean and uncorrupt, then he is breaking the
"hidden rule." From there on, we infer: weak women are
destined to be abused, because that is the "hidden rule."
Obedient citizens are destined to be bullied, because that is the
"hidden rule." If the weak women object to the abuse, they
are breaking the "hidden rule." If the obedient citizens
refuse to be bullied, they are breaking the "hidden rule."

How
can there be so many "hidden rules"? No wonder people keep
saying that the Chinese people are tired and bitter.

About 1,000 persons were interviewed in Hong Kong, of which half of them
kept blogs. 62% of the bloggers are female; almost 60% are under 25
while more than 30% are between the ages of 25-34.

Concerning the favorite blogs, 86% named the blogs of friends and
relatives. Next in the popularity list are actors, singers and
athletes. Business leaders and politicial figures are less popular at
only 10% and 8% respectively. The most popular blog themes are travel
(23%) and music (18%).

What is a good blog? Or bad blog? The respondents believe that a good
blog must be frequently updated. Next, the writing has to be fluid and
the photographs have to be elegant. Conversely, the respondents don't
like blogs that do not get updated, or have boring subjects, or have dubious
content.

According to MSN's Hong Kong director, the company will not filter the blogs
of its users. Periodically, the company receives complaints from
Internet users such as about pornograhic photographs. The company
follows through to delete the photographs and contents. So far there
has not been any criminal cases.

Addendum: Over
The Rainbow
(a) There are more than 4 million Internet users in Hong Kong, of which 56%
write blogs
(b) 62% of bloggers are female
(c) 70% of bloggers write blogs in order to share diaries and photo albums
with friends and families; 56% use blogs to keep in touch with friends and
families (and this is higher than the overall Asian level of 43%)
(d) 47% of Internet users think that blogs are just as trustworthy as
traditional media
(e) 80% of bloggers spend less than 5 hours per week reading or updating
blogs; the favorite blog subjects are travel (23%), music (18%), IT(6%),
news (6%), movies (6%). The favorite blogger types are singers (33%),
actresses(28%), business leaders (10%), politicians(8%), athletes(6%)
(f) 82% of bloggers said that at least 20 people view their blogs each week.

[108] More
Than 80 Reporters Arrested In Shanxi (11/28/2006) (Ming
Pao) In Linfen city, Shanxi province, there was a gas
explosion in a coal mine resulting in the deaths of 24 miners. At the
time, there was an electricity blackout down in the mine. Since the
ventilator was not working, gas became to accumulate. Afterwards, the
mine owner was arrested while the manager has fled.

Shanxi has many coal mines, and therefore many industrial accidents.
This has made the place a very popular destination for reporters. In
one coal town, more than 70 teams of reporters came through in 2005, from
national media to individual fake reporters. These reporters were paid
NOT to report on the conditions. Some of them demanded several
thousand RMB, while others were satisfied with a gasoline fill-up of their
cars.

In Luliang city (Shanxi), the government set up a special task force
consisting of members from 15 departments. In less than 100 days, they
found more than 80 fake reporters. 44 of them have sent to law
enforcement agencies for prosecution.

[107] The
Harvard Graduate in Kunming (11/27/2006) (Yunnan Information
News via 6Park)
a young man came to the police station in Kunming (Yunnan province) seeking
help to establish his identity because he has lost his documents (passport
and travel pass).

The young man wearing brand name clothes and accessories walked into the
reception room and said "Hello" to the officer and continued to
speak in English. The officer on duty was fluent in English and
carried on the conversation. But the young man then quickly switched
to putonghua.

The young man claimed that he is from Hong Kong and his address is Kowloon
International Center Number 132. He is the son of the chairman of an
international investment firm in Hong Kong and his English name is
"Star."

He said that he attended school in Venice (Italy) when he was four and he
studied overseas for many years. He has a business administration
degree from Harvard University. He said that he had lost his documents
at a local tourist spot. So the police officer gave him a form to fill
out. When the form was completed, the police officer was shocked at
the number of errors, including answers that were completely irrevelant to
the questions.

So the police officer carried out this Q&A:

Q: Which city is Harvard located in America?
A: It is in a city in America!
Q: Is it Washington DC?
A: Oh, ye, ye, ye! Harvard University is in Washington DC!
Harvard University used to be known as Houston University.
Q: How do you spell Hong Kong in English?
A: "Hankou."
Q: Why don't you call your family so that we can confirm your status?
A: Oh, no, no, no! My parents are chief executives. They are
very busy. I don't want them to worry.
Q: Why don't you forget it? We know who you are already. Just
tell us the truth!
A: Oh! You are mistaken. My mom and dad will be flying over here
to take me back to Hong Kong!

But after the police read out the information that they had, the young man
confessed that he was really a local 17-year-old with only an elementary
school education. However, he moved into the a student apartment and
began to borrow money from the girls while claiming to be a son of a rich
Hong Kong man. He spent the money to buy more brand name clothes and
accessories in order to borrow more money.

So far, the police have found three female students who lent him almost
30,000 RMB in total. The list is potentially as long as 50 female
university students. What were the women thinking? Don't answer that question
...

[106] Interior
Decoration (11/27/2006) (The
Sun) This is a seemingly trivial domestic incident in Hong
Kong, but I found it interesting because it took me a while to figure why
the fight was inevitable. Everything can be explained through the
floor plan of the re-decorated apartment. A couple lived there, but
they have been estranged (but not yet divorced) due to infidelity on the
part of the husband (namely, he has a mistress in mainland China). The
apartment is in a public housing estate, although the husband has a reported
wealth of HK$100 million and could probably live in much better style.
However, the husband believes that his good fortunes were due to the fengshui
in this apartment and therefore he continues to live there.

Due to the estrangement, the couple live in separate rooms. The
husband lives in room A while the wife lives in room E. Previously,
both shared the living room (D), the bathroom (C) and the kitchen (B).
The wife has her own living room (F). There is an entrance area (G)
right behind the front door..

The husband then initiated interior decoration project #1. He hired a
contractor to seal the door from Room E to the living room, restroom and
kitchen. The wife was mad, but she could not make the contractor
stop. So the wife then initiated interior decoration project #2.
She hired a contractor to seal the door from the entrance area G to areas A,
B, C, D. So this means that the husband has no access to his own
room. Furthermore, nobody had access to the living room, restroom or
kitchen.
As I said, the fight was inevitable with their children taking different
sides. The police was summoned and they came and hauled everyone down
to the police station.

[105] Pundit
Accountability (11/27/2006) In Tom Friedman
In China, I was attempting to hold Tom
Friedman accountable for his statements on Iraq. They were mostly
wrong, but as an unelected and self-appointed pundit, he is not being held
accountable. What is accountability? It means that at a minimum
Tom Friedman's predictions on any other sujbect ought to be taken with less
confidence.

I am not picking on just Tom Friedman. There are plenty of other
unelected pundits who are not being held accountable, including Chinese
ones. For example, the following quotations come Jiao Guobiao from his
book: Flagrant Remarks From My Conscience. The title of the
essay is Three Essays on Iraq, and is dated around early 2003.

On January 27, 2003, the Turkish premier said
that the Americans have informed him that they can conquer Iraq militarily
in fifteen days. I believe it. When the war in Iraq begins, the
entire country will be rapidly pacified. Once the Saddam government
falls, the embryonic form of a modern democratic government will quickly
come into being with the support of America in the area of the two ancient
rivers. Within five years, this newborn Iraq will stand proudly in the
world. This is what I say. You just wait and watch for it.

Okay, so maybe it has only been 3-1/2 years and
there is still a chance that the prediction will come true. But of the
three options (1) double the bet, as in I know it will happen because what you
see right now is transitory; (2) pretend I never wrote this and hope that no
one will bring this up; (3) acknowledge that I was wrong and I will try to
analyze where I went wrong -- which do you think will happen?

Here
is more stuff from Jiao Guobiao in praise of the "public order
disturbances"/"mass incidents" after Iraq was overrun by the
Coalition forces:

In recent days, the Iraqis have been looting
the public institutions, including government offices and foreign embassies
as well as the national museum. The media have condemned the American
and British troops for failing to stop the looting. I believe that
this is the way by which the Coalition wants to "tame the people."

The
Iraqi looters are like people attending a carnival. They are like
farmers at the harvest celebration, who are trying to reap as much wheat as
possible. This is a release from a longtime repression, a
re-possession after a longtime exploitation.

The
Coalition should give the Iraqis a suitable period to release their
feelings. If they had watched them over closely just like the former
Saddam regime, then the Iraqis would think that one Saddam has been replaced
by another Saddam and nothing has changed. If the old things continue
to exist, then what hope is there in life?

Therefore,
I believe that the media are wrong to use "looting" and
"robbing" so persvasively. Looting and robbing must have
identifiable victims, such as homes being robbed. Here, the
"looting" is only for materials without any owners and this is
different from robbing someone's possessions and maybe even hurting the
owners.

... The looting by the Iraqis
is like the Beijing people looting the Summer Garden back then. They
cannot go near the place in ordinary times, because they were treated as the
enemies by the authorities. Alas, here came a day when they could go
and rip the place apart. So what were they waiting for?

"Looting"
is a form of robbery and is not a good thing. The comforting thing is
that it will be over quickly. For one thing, the Coalition forces and
the people of Iraq will undertake the joint task of maintaining public
safety. For another thing, this was just looting without real
robberies. In 1998, Indonesians rioters robbed the Chinese of their
properties and abused their women. Now that is real robbery.

In
reviewing the entire process of looting by the Iraqis, this was just a happy
celebration among the people. There were no riots created by violent
rioters. The participants were just the good citizens of Iraq.

[103] Politics
as Entertainment (11/27/2006) Comment
200611#100 simply stated that "Politics
is just like entertainment, and the media is increasingly becoming
entertainment." But where is the empirical proof? Where is
the beef, as it is?

In Corruption
Scandal at Top Tests Taiwans Democracy by Jim Yardley (New York
Times), "One way that some Taiwanese have reassured themselves is to
note that none of this  a public demonstration against a president, an
indictment against the first family  could have happened across the
strait in non-democratic China. Indeed, that point has been made by a
handful of bloggers in China who have watched Taiwans democratic
convulsions not with disgust but with admiration."

But there are actually deeper technical issues that are covered by a number
of posts/comments at this weblog. In The
Media Story of the Soccer Commentator, there was a question about
whether the resignation of soccer commentator Huang Jianxiang from CCTV was "a blow to the
system," "defense of freedom" and "pursuit of
individuality." On the whole, the affair sounded much more like yet
another entertainment news item rather than a political revolution.

Meanwhile, the two major political issues in Taiwan on this weekend is about
President Chen Shui-bian's son going to the French restaurant Daniel in New
York City in a Mercedes=-Benz with his wife wearing a fur coat (Comment
200611#097) and Taipei city mayor Ma Ying-Jeou's dog getting a
haircut/shampoo (Comment
200611#101). The lesson
for the mainland Chinese, if they are paying any attention, is that they
would not want their political choices be determined by what family members
of famous politicians are doing. For example, the major political
choices in Taiwan are about electing the mayors of Taipei and Kaohsiung
cities. The voters ought to choose whomever they believe to be best
persons. Why should Ma Ying-jeou's dog matter? Or where
President Chen's son dined on the day before Thanksgiving?
Nevertheless, these other factoids are popping up because the media are
chasing after politicians' family members and pets as if these are matters
of public interest or as if they are entertainment celebrities such as Faye
Wong, Jay Chou and Jolin Tsai. No, they really are not! While it
is boring and much less sexy to talk about platforms and policies, that is
actually more relevant and meaningful!

More precisely, I am stating that I dislike the November 2006 elections in
the United States because they were positioned as mid-term elections that
are a test of support for the President. For crying out loud,
President George W. Bush is not up for re-election. If I am going to
vote for my Congressional representative, I ought to vote for the best
person out of all the candidates on the ballot, regardless of party
affiliation. Why would I vote for some inferior person solely in order
to spite the sitting president? I will have to live with this person
as my representative even though I was fully aware of his/her flaws now.

In like manner, I just find the fluctuating fortunes of the mayoral
candidates in Taipei and Kaohsiung to be weird and irrational. Why
should the numbers bounce on account of the indictment of the President's
wife for embezzlement or the KMT party chairman's problems with the special
funds being allocated partially to pay for the living expenses of his
dog? The voters are supposed to be electing the best candidate to
serve as the mayors for their respective cities. It is a serious
mistake to think that they are voting on the presidency (either the current
one or the prospective 2008 one). This is a lesson that I hope that
United States and Taiwan can learn now, and that someday mainland China can
learn based upon these examples.

In any country, politics is dead on arrival if there is a polarization into
one or the other party. For example, if people are always divided into
a majority fraction and a minority fraction along party lines, then
democratic voting will always result in the majority winning. This is
a deadly outcome! In the United States (as well as Taiwan), the saving
grace is that there exists a sufficiently large independent faction who will
not vote automatically along party lines and will evaluate their votes on a
case-by-case basis. I assert that the degree of democracy in any
country is the size of this independent faction.

馬英九)
was assaulted by an independent Kaohsiung city council candidate yesterday
while campaigning for his party's mayoral candidate in the city.
During a campaign event for KMT Kaohsiung mayoral candidate Huang Chun-ying
(黃俊英
), Chang Ho-yi (張禾宜
) rushed toward Ma and punched
him in the face chanting "Ma Ying-jeou step down." ... Chang
later yesterday held a press conference where she accused Ma of
"conniving with his bodyguards to commit physical abuse," claiming
this had resulted in her suffering multiple bruising.

Why does this type of thing happened? Blame the media!Phase 1: A physical confrontation takes place when a previously
unknown minor candidate attempts to assault a well-known politician.Phase 2: Regardless of whether the assault had any effect, the media
will give national exposure to the event and the attacker. This is
positive reinforcement and will encourage others to imitate because only
good (=publicity) and nothing bad (=penalties) ever come out of this
type of thing ...

P.S. (ETToday via Yahoo!
News) Chang Ho-yi came back for more the next day at a Kaohsiung
rally. The police assigned female police officers to look after
her. In the photograph, Ms. Chang has her hand on the neck of the
female police officer, who was under strict orders to never talk or fight
back.

[101] Ma
Ying-jeou Junior (11/26/2006) Taipei mayor and KMT party
chairman Ma Ying-jeou is embroiled in his own version of special funds
scandal. One of the concrete evidence is a stray dog that he adopted
seven years ago. The initial medical examination was paid for with
special funds, and so is a monthly allowance. But there is a more
fundamental question: Does the dog (named Ma Ying-jeou Junior

馬小九)
even exist?

(TVBS via Yahoo!
News) Our reporter went to speak to neighbors of Ma Ying-jeou.
Reporter: "Have you seen Junior?"
Neighbor: "No. We haven't seen him."
Reporter: "The neighbors said that they have not seen Junior.
There are posters searching for the dog posted everywhere. So where is
Junior?"
Reporter: "Here is the pet shop closest to Ma Ying-jeou's home.
Have you seen Junior?"
Pet shop owner: "His wife came around to check out the dog food.
But she only asks about prices. She never bought anything."
Reporter: "What about the vet? The dog is supposed to have a
preventive shot every year. Have you seen Junior?"
Vet: "Not yet."
Reporter: "What about the vet who first examined Junior seven years
eight months ago? Have you seen Junior since?"
Dr. Chen: "No."
So where is Ma Ying-jeou Junior?

(TVBS via Yahoo!
News) A group of pan-green candidates for the Taipei city
legislature showed up at Ma Ying-jeou's home. They distributed flyers
looking for Ma Ying-jeou Junior. A neighbor told them that Junior
exists, and he brought his own dog (which he says is Junior's best friend)
as proof. But the candidates refuse to believe him. When they
attempted to crash into Ma's home to look for the dog, the police stopped
them. The police raise their warning placards, but the candidates
ignored them (of course).

(Apple
Daily) The long media vigil finally paid off when Mrs. Ma was
seen yesterday taking Junior out for a haircut and shampoo.
Seven-year-old Junior rolled his eyes and ducked into Mrs. Ma's arms while the
flashbulbs from the photographers were going off.
Yes, but a DPP legislator said: "Who knows if this is the real
Junior? A DNA analysis is more reliable."

Relevant Link:
馬小九部落格
(note: this is the very popular unofficial website for Ma Ying-jeou Junior).

[100] Politics =
Entertainment? (11/26/2006) The story about President Chen
Shui-bian's son Chen Chih-chung (see Comment 200611#097)
reminds me about this blog post by the Hong Kong blogger Miss Taipo.
So here is the belated translation of the blog post titled Hong
Kong has no politics, just entertainment dated October 14, 2006.

... I was a graduate from the Department of
Journalism, so I logically became a journalist. I did that for seven
years. During my seven years as journalist, I worked in investigative
journalism, crime reporting and then I became a political journalist.
When I stepped into politics, my eyes were opened up. Government,
public servants, political parties, politicians, businessmen -- how various
people betray their allies, distrust each other, refuse to share the wealth
or spread around their misfortunes! How many of those people have a
conscience? If I tell you that Doctor Woo who told you to eat
"dog biscuits" is actually a person who spoke the truth from his
heart, my readers would say "Huh?" If I said that you
shouldn't believe Anson Chan even if she swore that she was telling the
truth, my readers would say "Huh?" too. Not everybody can
accept the truth. In this case, the politicians think that they are
politicians but they are just nobodies, whereas the reporters are small
politicians.

... Lau Kong-wah said correctly that
there is no politics in Hong Kong. There is only entertainment.

Politics
is just like entertainment, and the media is increasingly becoming
entertainment. How many political news reports show the media
style? The media company bosses only want to make money and they want
exposés and scandals. Social responsibility and public trust have
become decorative already. When the news products are not respected,
what becomes of the reporters? Their positions and wages deteriorate
from day to day. As time goes by, only novices would want to do this
laborious but unrewarding job. Such is the sorrow of this occupation,
as well as society as a whole. Without these experienced and
perceptive reporters, how shall the readers expand their vistas and how
shall the media fulfill their functions? So the media become the tools
of the rulers, just as Chairman Mao, the government, the politicians and the
advertisers wish.

But apart from all this, the media
workers are still worthy of respect. Their rewards are not
commensurate with their efforts. Sometimes, they put in not only their
sweat and time, but also their emotions and ideals.

[099] Li Datong On
The State Of Chinese Media (11/26/2006) (Boxun)
According to Reporters Without Borders, 139 reporters are detained around
the world, of which 32 of them are in China (including Zhao Yan, Shi Tao and
Ching Cheong).

Former China Youth Daily's Freezing Point weekly magazine chief editor Li
Datong said that this list does not directly reflect how the Chinese
government controls the media. The government does not have to resort
to detaining reporters in order to achieve their objectives.

Li Datong said: "About the detentions themselves, it is for certain
that this is not set government policy . The Chinese system does not require
direct oppression of reporters, because reporters do not have the right to
conduct independent investigations and issue independent reports. The
authorities only have to control the chief editors. This is the basic
characteristic of Chinese media. The chief editor is supposed to be a
media worker, but he is not. He actually has oversight
responsibilities on news reporting . The daily job of the chief editor is to
determine what cannot be published. The sickness in Chinese media is
about what cannot be expressed."

Media control in China is a top-down system. Li Datong said that the
fact that very few national-level or major provincial-level media reporters
have ever been detained or jailed means that the Chinese government does not
have to go after individual reporters in order to control the media.
As for the cases of Shi Tao and others, Li Datong explained as follows:
"I think that they want to use this method to go after some
people. But I don't think that they are so stupid in general because
this is legally tenuous. They have found out about this. Besides
it arouses public anger. I think that it is unlikely that they will
come after you on account of your reporting. The case of Ching Cheong
is basically confusing. Even now, I still have no idea what it is
about."

[098] The
Chinese-language Signs (11/25/2006) (Wenxue
City) Here are three images that have been circulated widely
in China for some time. These refer to Chinese-language signs that
appear at certain famous overseas tourist sights.
In Notre Dame Cathedral (Paris, France): "Please keep quiet"
In Pearl Harbor (Honolulu, USA): "Trash Bin Is Here"
In the Royal Palace (Bangkok, Thailand): "Please flush toilet after
use"

(in translation)

These signs have been the subject of discussion at many
Chinese media (People's
Daily, Xinhua,
Yangcheng Wanbao, Sichuan Daily, etc). It is even included in a high
school exam.

A Southern Weekend article titled "Uncivilized behavior of Chinese
tourists overseas has shocked senior officials" began this way:
"'Chinese persons, please flush toilet,' 'Please keep quiet,' 'Please
do not spit' ... these warning signs written in simplified Chinese
characters appear frequently in the major destinations for Chinese tourists
overseas: France, Germany, Japan, Thailand, Singapore, etc. At a time
when tourists are becoming the latest export from China, 'Chinese people'
have come to stand for uncivilized and rude behavior."

The story is a hoax. To quote from the United
Nations Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination:
"the United Nations is based on the principles of the dignity and
equality of all human beings and seeks, among other basic objectives, to
achieve international co-operation in promoting and encouraging respect for
human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to
race, sex, language or religion."

If any country work on the basis that certain individual Chinese persons had
engaged in uncivilized behavior and then promptly issue these signs directed
against the entire "Chinese people," then this is racial
discrimination. In China, we have seen that signs such as
"Resolutely combat the criminal organizations from Henan" and
"Beware of Xinjiang pickpockets" being denounced and removed after
nationwide public outcries. So could it be that developed countries
like France and the United States would allow these kinds of signs that
exhibit clear racial discrimination? How likely is that? Do the
Chinese media have brains?

[097] Chen Chih-Chung
Talks Back (11/25/2006) Chen Chih-chung is the son of
President Chen Shui-bian. He is presently living with his expectant
wife Huang Jui-ching in New
York City. As such, he is the target of the paparazzi from Taiwan.

(China
Times) After a long period of surveillance, the electronic
media finally caught sight of Chen Chih-chung and Huang Jui-ching. She
was wearing a luxurious fur coat and holding a brand name Denim handbag as
the couple came out of an upscale French restaurant and went into a black
Mercedes-Benz sedan.

Chen and Huang left Taiwan in mid-October for New York City. The
investigator Chen Rui-jen in the state affairs fund investigation wanted to
interview Chen Chih-chung but he missed his chance.

According to the media, the couple is currently living in a luxury apartment
in the exclusive Upper West Side area. The building has a gymnasium
and a swimming pool. The room has a great view of the Hudson
River. The monthly rent for the two-bedroom apartment is at least
NT$250,000. Many celebrities live in the building.

The media also followed the couple to the French restaurant Daniel on Thanksgiving
Day. This is the top French restaurant in New York City. The
cost per meal is at least NT$5,000. The most expensive red wine in the
restaurant costs NT$180,000.

According to the media, Chen Chih-chung does not work or attend school in
New York City. They seldom go out and when they do, it is usually to
eat or shop, sometimes for baby products. They seem to be waiting for
Huang to deliver her baby.

Well, you got that? But here is Chen Chih-chung's public statement on
the media coverage:

1. The so-called luxury apartment is a small two-bedroom
small-family apartment measuring just over 600 square feet in area. It faces the
building across the street, not the Hudson River. The building has a
small gym, but no swimming pool. The residents are middle-class
American families. The apartment is also far away from Central Park,
so any claim of park views is absurd. So too is the claim that the
rent is NT$250,000 per month.

2. On the day before Thanksgiving, we went to dinner at a French restaurant
with friends. The Mercedes-Benz is not ours. My friend called a
car service in consideration that my wife is pregnant and it was cold in New
York City that night. When we go out, we usually hail yellow taxi cabs
in the street.

3. My wife's fur cape was purchased by her mother many years ago. Her
mother told her to bring it along this time because it is cold in New York
City. There is another fur coat that my wife bought on our wedding
anniversary for NT$30,000 plus.

4. Since graduation, I have been on an internship in an American law office
in Manhattan. In early September, I went back to Taipei to visit my ill
mother, and I delayed my return in consideration of her poor health.

5. Finally, I thank everybody for their concern. But I wish you would
respect my privacy and not intrude into our normal lives. If anyone
should distort the truth or make exaggerated claims to smear our
reputations, we will take the necessary legal actions.

(ERA
TV) (807 voters age 20 or older in Taipei city were
interviewed on the evenings of November 20-23. The sample was
initially drawn randomly from the telephone directory in proportion to the
population size by administrative district. The last two digits of the
selected telephone numbers were then randomized)

(ERA
TV) (825 voters age 20 or older in Kaohsiung
city were interviewed on the evenings of November 20-23. The sample
was initially drawn randomly from the telephone directory in proportion to
the population size by administrative district. The last two digits of
the selected telephone numbers were then randomized)
(changes from 11/10 survey are in parentheses)
Huang Jun-yin (KMT): 39% (+3%)
Chen Chu (DPP): 28%(-3%)
Lo Chih-ming (TSU): 3%(+1%)
Don't know/undecided: 30%(-1%)

[095] 'Beijing
Automotive Exhibition' Controversy (11/24/2006) (People's
Daily) The 2006 Beijing International Automotive Exhibition
opened on Sunday, displaying 572 cars and car parts from 1500 manufacturers
in 20 countries and regions. It is estimated that about 500,000 people
attend the Exhibition over the nine days.

It is customary for the automotive manufacturers to hire pretty female
models to pose next to their products.
Why? (Racerchicks.com)

... Do scantily-clad women actually increase sales in the
automotive industry? There is no simple answer. Given the number of
bikinis hovering over street rods, hot rods and import racers at the 2005
SEMA show, you might think the answer was a clear Yes. One of the
exhibitors, Drew Heitner, owner of M&D International, expressed his
thoughts on the matter succinctly: "A woman judges her man by the car
he drives, but a man judges his car by the women it attracts."

... It served as a reminder that tasteful and tasteless are two
different approaches to marketing, but whichever strategy you choose, you
have to remember the fundamentals.

Rule No. 1: Know your product. If there is a demand and
the quality is there, your product will sell.

Rule No. 2: Know your customer. If the testosterone crowd
is your buyer and you want to ignore the rest of the population, then go for
it. But never underestimate the female buyer  we play an important part
in automotive decisions and are the fastest growing sector in the auto area.

I am not a feminist. I am a female car enthusiast. My
argument is not to sever that century-old partnership of beautiful women and
beautiful cars. But I do want companies to use some taste and discretion
when placing the two together.

(The
Sun) At the Chang'an Motor exhibit, a tall and lovely model was
being harassed verbally by a man who reeked of alcohol. "Miss, why
are you standing here? Are you tired?" The model ignored him
while continuing to smile. The man persisted: "Miss, you are really
sexy!" as he attempted to sidle up to her. Meanwhile another man
was taking photographs of the models at the Shanghai People exhibit, but his
camera was focused on the breasts and buttocks. When asked, "Why
are you photographing pretty girls but not the cars?" he said: "If I
want to buy a car, I would have gone to the auto dealer. Why did I come
here? To check out the girls. It is visually enjoyment and my wife
says its okay."

There is also an Internet forum debate at ChineseNewsNet.
The title of the post is "The World Is Watching China, But What Is China
Watching?" and contains three photographs but no text. From the foci of the cameras, the photographers seemed
to have no interest in the cars.
Does this prove the low quality of the Chinese people once again? Well,
before you can even think about this question, you need to be aware that the
commentators assert that these photographs came from Japan. As proof,
they said that the steering wheel in the car in the background of the third
photograph is on the side opposite to the Chinese way. So the first
question is, What kind of person would use photographs of Japanese cameramen
in a post titled "The World is Watching China, But What Is China
Watching?" The second question is that notwithstanding these
photographs, do you believe that such behavior are commonplace in China?
The third question is that if such behavior is commonplace in China, then is
anything wrong with it? After all, the behavior is just as common in
Japan and the United States. The fourth question is that having dealt
with all the preceding questions, what is the proper title for that post?

[094] Con Games in
China (11/24/2006) (Xinhua)
In Zhongshan city (Guangdong province), citizen Li was swindled out of more
than 1 million RMB. The con men were two West Africans who told Li
that they had smuggled US$250,000 from their own country. But in order
to move such a large sum, they had to dyed the bills with black ink.
For demonstration, the two men took out a stack of black paper and let Mrs.
Li draw some at random. Then they took out a bottle of liquid in which
they soaked the pieces of black paper. Several minutes later, the ink
washed away from the two US$50 and one US$100 bills. The Li's were
able to verify at the local bank that these were genuine bills. In the
next phase, the two men explained that they didn't have enough money to buy
the liquid to clean up their entire US$250,000 stash. Therefore they
needed a bridge loan (with a sizeable reward). Li personally brought
1.05 million RMB to Beijing. The two took the money and said that they
were proceeding next to purchase the liquid from ... you get this ... the US
Embassy! A short while later, the two called to say that they have
been "detained at the US Embassy." At that point, Li thought
that he might be the victim of a scam. So he called the police, who
arrested the two men.

(ChinaFotoPress via 163.com)
In Foshan near a hospital, scam artists approached an old man. They
claimed that there was a family medical emergency and they needed
money. However, they only have foreign currency and it is impossible
to get it converted to RMB quickly enough at the local bank.
Therefore, they asked the old man to advance them the money in exchange for
a reward. At that point, they produced a stack of foreign
currencies. The old man was unsure. Then someone else
showed up and claimed to be in the Trust Department at a bank, with an
appropriate worker identification card. The banker confirmed that the
foreign currency bills were genuine. So the old man went to the bank
and withdrew his lifetime savings of 120,000 RMB to give to the scam
artists. However, the police had been watching these people for some
time. They followed the suspects' car and blocked its progress.
When the suspects attempted to flee, the police fired warning shots into the
air and apprehended them. Here are the photographs.

(Oriental Daily)
In Hong Kong, a 46-year-old woman named Wong working at a food market has an
8-year-old son with a hearing impairment. Three women in a
"prayer" (

祈福)
gang heard about her background and approached her. They explained
that if they can hold a prayer session with the Wong's entire savings, then
her son will be cured. They said: "You have to take out
everything in the bank, or else it won't work." So Wong withdrew
her entire savings of HK$1 million plus the jewelry that she received at her
wedding. During the prayer session, the women switched the contents in
the bag with fruits and toothpaste. Wong was distraught. The
police were surprised that anyone could still for such an old trick.
The bank said that when Wong came in to withdraw her money, they tried to
alert her but she insisted on taking the money.

Why do scams work? Sometimes the scam artists are preying upon
greed. More often, they are taking advantage of the goodness and
kindness in people.

[093] Website Owner
Gets Life Sentence In China (11/24/2006) (First Finance Daily
via 163.com)
The case is described in detail at The
Number One Internet Porn Case in China.
According to verdict just announced, the lead defendant Chen Fei has been
sentenced to "life in prison with deprivation of political rights for
life, plus confiscation of 100,000 RMB in personal assets." The
crime is "distribution of pornographic materials for profit."

This particular crime was included in the Criminal Law Code in 1996.
It has seldom been invoked, because these large-scale cases are rare.
Chen Fei could have been given the minimum sentence of ten years in
jail. Instead, he was given the maximum sentence. In theory, the
law defines the sentence in terms of certain thresholds. For example,
Chen's websites had registered 619,611 members, distributed 44,812 obscene
photographs and earned more than 100,000 RMB in profits. While the
numbers for the people, exposures and contents exceeded the thresholds, the
threshold for earnings was supposed to be 250,000 RMB. However, the
law sets the decision based upon whether people, exposures, contents OR
earnings exceeded the threshold. Chen Fei will probably appeal the
verdict.

(China
Times) (711 Taipei City adults interviewed by telephone on November
22. The initial was drawn randomly from the Taipei telephone directory
and then the last two digits of the selected telephone numbers were
randomized)

(China
Times) (711 Kaohsiung adults interviewed by telephone on
November 22. The initial was drawn randomly from the Kaohsiung
telephone directory and then the last two digits of the selected telephone
numbers were randomized)

[091] Shaolin Monks
Disturb Public Order (11/24/2006) (NorthEast
Net) According to Chengdu TV channel 33 reporter Lu Ji'an,
they received a citizen tip that several dozen self-proclaimed Shaolin monks
had set up a big canopy in the street to perform martial arts in the name of
charity but actually for profit. So the reporters went to the location
under cover. There, they were asked to pay a 10 RMB admission fee even
though this was a free performance. Afterwards, the reporters
identified themselves and wanted to interview the group leader about whether
the group had the necessary permits to perform in public space.
Instead, the group leader blew on a whistle and suddenly more than a dozen
bald-headed men wearing yellow robes and wielding sticks attacked the
reporters. One of the reporters managed to run off, but the other
reporter took a few blows in the head, face and shoulders because he was
trying to shield his camera. The police were called and a vehicle
carrying militia police arrived quickly at the scene. The men
surrounded the police car and banged on the exterior with their
sticks. The militia police in the car summoned for help and the area
was soon swarming with more than one hundred police officers.

When the newspaper reporter arrived at the scene, he heard two loud sounds
-- "Bang! Bang!" He saw that a militia policeman had just
fired two warning shots into the air with his gun. Meanwhile about a
dozen policemen tackled one bald-headed men who was resisting arrest.
Meanwhile there was a bus surrounded by people. Inside the bus were
dozens of bald-headed men in yellow robes. Eventually, the men on the
bus were removed and taken down to the police station for questioning.

In reference to the discussion in Statistics of Mass Incidents,
is this a 'mass incident' or a 'public order disturbance'? Answer: the
latter.

Singapore Strait
Times special correspondent Ching Cheong has been detained in mainland China
for over a year, and his wife Mary Lau has been working very hard for his
release ...

Yesterday Mary Lau and the Hong Kong
Journalists Association held a press conference to defend Ching
Cheong. The reporter from Sing Tao Net asked Mary Lau whether her
criticisms of the court charges implied that she has accepted that the
verdict document on the Internet was authentic. Mary Lau snapped back:
"You are going to have to ask your webmaster! SingtaoNet was the
first to publish this verdict document. Why is the Chinese government
not after the Sing Tao people responsible for this? We have consulted
with knowledgeable people and they tell us that leaking state secrets leads
to three years in jail. But I have no reason to call for the Chinese
government to cause trouble for you."

What are possible scenarios?

(1) Sing Tao obtained the documents surreptitiously. Then they have broken
Chinese law.

(2) Sing Tao obtained the documents from a verified official source (subject
to non-disclosure of the identity of that source) who did so in order to serve
an unstated purpose (e.g. establish criminality). You would think that
Sing Tao is ethically required to disclose the circumstances so that their
readers can exercise care.

(3) Sing Tao obtained the documents from an unverified source (e.g. an
anonymous email showed up in the editor's inbox and the attached document
seemed 'real'). You would think that Sing Tao is ethically required to
disclose the lack of verification.

Sing Tao has said nothing about the process. You can flip a coin among
(1), (2) or (3). I lean towards (2) with the suspicion that parts of the
documents could have been edited. This is a personal opinion. You
must forgive me for speculating -- What else can I do when Sing Tao provides
no further information?

Here was James Soong's reaction at FTV (via Yahoo!
News). James Soong spent yesterday visiting a kindergarten to
explain his policies about young children. He told the press that he
was angry because United Daily Press used a fake public opinion poll to
pressure him to quit.

Not to fear, for here is some good news from the TVBS public opinion
poll. It places him at 10% (-2% from the 10 days ago).

(TVBS)
(844 persons age 20 or over in Taipei City interviewed by telephone on the
evening of November 20. The sample was originally drawn from the
telephone directory and then the last four digits were randomized)

The TVBS has a 95% confidence of plus or minus 3.4%, which covers the UDN
estimate of 8%.

This is what politicians do with polls (which are generally consistent with
each other unless something is really wrong). When the poll results
are unfavorable, you call them fake polls; when the poll results are
favorable, you say "I told you so." This is not how
reality works -- the polls are either fairly accurate and if they are
rubbish, you will find them within a couple of election cycles. Based
upon past poll results, what are James Soong's chances?

[088] Weapons of Mass
Destruction (11/22/2006) (Next Weekly, 11/23/2006) Last
Thursday in Hong Kong SAR, Mongkok police deployed secretly around a 53-year-old sports
equipment shop as they waited for the arrival of the boss -- a 72-year-old
man. At 1130am, the police raided the shop armed with a search
warrant. The police rummaged through the shop and hauled away a total of
643 nunchakus, 3 bows, 43 machetes, plus more than a thousand flying
darts, iron lotus spikes, ring knives and nine-link steel whips. The boss was arrested at
the scene. The police believed that the location was selling illegal weapons.
And then came the anti-climax. The boss was bailed out on HK$20,000
bond. And most of the seized weapons (including knives and bows) were
returned to the shop the next day. The only items held were a pair of
nunchakus which once belonged to the legendary Bruce Lee plus some of the flying darts.

When interviewed by the reporter, the boss complained: "The police
didn't explain anything. They only said that they will think about whether
these were offensive weapons. I have been running this Mongkok sports
equipment shop for more than 50 years and I have been selling the same
stuff. I know those policemen in at the Mongkok station. They come here to buy
football jerseys and order sports banners and trophies. I didn't
expect that I would end up being arrested after I got past the age of
70. Many of the customers are foreigners and Japanese who buy the
Chinese kungfu equipment as souvenirs. The Japanese particularly like
Bruce Lee. So if a Japanese guy buys a nunchaku here and he walks out
into the street, should he be arrested?"

The case has also drew a great deal of attention at the martial arts BBS's
in Hong Kong. Here are some comments: "Which triad members fight with
nunchakus in the street?" "Glass bottles, fruit knives and
iron water wipes are said to be illegal weapons too ... are they going to
arrest the people who sell sodas and fruits?" "Are you going
to go rob someone at night with a nine-link steel whip and a set of flying
darts?"

Here is the legal advice:
- If you carry offensive weapons in the street, you are guilty of
breaking public security regulation article 33.
- Even if the police did not take action against the shop for the past five
decades, it does not mean that the shop was not breaking the law. In
fact, admitting that they have been selling the same stuff for several
decades already will bring a heavier sentence!
- As long as you have weapons in your home without a reasonable explanation,
you are breaking the law even. Claiming that you idolize Bruce Lee is
not good enough! If you say that the place is a kendo school and your
sword blade is not sharpened, then you may have a chance.

[087] Continental
Shift (11/21/2006) In the past, I have translated a number of
blog posts from the Chinese blog known as Lian Yue's Eighth Continent hosted
at MSN Spaces. Conversely, Lian Yue has even reciprocated by referring
to the English-language EastSouthWestNorth blog. For BlogShares, Lian
Yue's blog was actually the top-ranked incoming link because he had more
than 3,000 incoming link himself.

But all that is in the past, as the MSN Spaces blog is now totally
inaccessible from China. To my mind, this is somewhat peculiar since
many of Lian Yue's blog post come from his column at Southern Metropolis Daily. I read the last few blog posts at MSN Spaces and I don't find
anything especially prickly, unless someone holds a grudge against Imre
Nagy. But now there is a new location at Blog.com.
Here is my translation of his statement about the new blog.

I have been writing over at MSN Spaces for several years.
I thought it was not bad, because there was no web administrator jumping in
to delete stuff.
But it is over. Last Saturday, it died totally.
In this nation with the most free Internet, this is actually a common event.
Of course, starting a new blog is a very simple matter.
This sort of thing can go on repeatedly, because the costs for both sides
are low.
But it is a nuisance for everybody to update their links.
...
So it is not a big deal or loss to move elsewhere.
I am not going to move the original blog posts here, because I am too lazy
and beside, I don't see the need.
You should read the latest and most interesting things.
The new location is probably just like MSN Spaces. It'll be a bit
slow, and it does not look like an authentic Chinese-language interface.
But they probably will not be deleting your blog posts every couple of days
for the sake of their survival.
The imperfect thing is that it does not provide blog links,
and it has some ads on the right-hand column (I get nothing out of it).
I insist on the following ideas for blogs:
It should be freely accessible to the public, because proxy services are
suitable for just a few people;
I will try to make it survive as long as possible;
I will write and link to whatever I want and I will not accept any debate
under censorship (or else I shouldn't bother to get on the Internet).

[086] The Sadistic
CCTV Host (11/21/2006) (Sohu.com)
In 2004, there was a legal case between famous CCTV host Zhao Zhongxiang and
his mistress Rao Ying. But more recently, the case has heated up again
when Rao Ying began publishing her diaries at a fairly obscure website known
appropriately as Gouzai Net (=Paparazzi Net). The sales pitch:
"Details of sadistic sexual abuse will be revealed."
Apparently, Rao Ying intends to publish a book with the tentative title:
"From Rape To Sexual Torture: The Unknown Details Between Zhao
Zhongxiang and I." The online diary entries are piling up
hundreds of thousands of page views.

Here are some translated excerpts:

(Part 1) ...
The third time that I saw him was in September 1997. That afternoon, I
went to the East Gate at CCTV as arranged. I called to ask him where I
should meet him. He said nonchalantly: "You come to my
home!" Following his instructions, I arrived at the dormitory
building ... After a while, he stood up from the chair. I thought that
he wanted to go out. At that moment, he shoved me and I fell down on
the bed. He got on top of me and put his body on mine ... I wanted to
resist, but I had no strength. Afterwards, he got up and helped me to
sit up. I was furious that a man that I admired could do something
like that to me. I got my clothes and I was about to leave. But
he held me and used his magnetic tenor voice to say: "The first time
that I saw you, I thought that you are very pure. There are too few
people like you, maybe none ... You and your body are very pure. In
this complex society, I don't think it is so easy to remain so pure. I
will really love you." His eyes looked so kind.

(Part 2)
... In November 11, 1997, I found out that I was pregnant. At the
time, I was not having sex with my husband. I told Zhao
Zhongxiang. ... I asked him what should I do. He was noncommittal, but he said: "Didn't you say that you want to become a
better doctor? So you should not let anything else interfere with
you." I asked him what I should do with the growing fetus.
He said: "I also f*cking want to have eight or ten children, but this
is against policy in China. You don't think that I want my own
child?" No matter how I phrased it, he would not provide a
concrete answer and he was displeased with the pressure. "This is
the woman's business that she should deal with herself. There is no
need to tell the man." When I looked unhappy, he embraced me and
said: "Baby, when you go, please call me. I will quietly pray for
you." ... So I did not say anything. I went by myself to
the hospital to get an abortion.

(Part 3) ...
Then he began to torture me physically. Several times when we were
together, he used a knife to cut my arm. Then he used a needle on
which he put some saliva on then he pricked my vagina with it. He said
that it was for disinfection purposes. I was screaming from the pain,
but he was ecstatic. He said: "Baby, you don't know how happy I
get when you do that. Let me prick you." Zhao Zhongxiang
was a sadist. He made me have intercourse even if I was
menstruating. If I refused, he would beat and scold me until I
succumb. ... In 2000, the death of Zhao Zhongxiang's sister cast a
shadow into his heart. He told me once: "Members of my family do
not live long. I am 60 years old. I am afraid that I won't live
too long." Therefore, he had to engage in sadism in order to
enjoy himself in time.

[085] Taiwan By The
Numbers (11/21/2006) (United
Daily News) (822 Taipei city voters (with 92 refusals) and 806
Kaohsiung city voters (with 121 refusals) interviewed by telephone on
November 19-20. The samples were drawn initially from the residential
telephone directories and then the last two digits were randomized.)

It has been ridiculed by cynics as the Central
Polling Unit for its intensified public opinion survey programme. But the
Central Policy Unit has acted to bolster its policy research team to
function as the government's "think-tank" on both policy options
and public opinion analysis.

The CPU has recently invited applications
for the post of senior research officer and two research assistants. Its
research team presently comprises four senior researchers and four research
officers.

CPU head Lau Siu-kai said: "We have
the biggest research team to conduct trend studies about political, social
and economic developments of Hong Kong and the mainland. Tracking public
opinion is an integral part of governance. With that, critics have second
thoughts when they want to claim public opinion is on their side."

[083] Two
Personal Views of Nancy Pelosi (11/21/2006) Nancy Pelosi will
be the new speaker of the US Congress.

The first time that I heard the name Pelosi was in the
year after the tragedy at Tiananmen Square. At the time, I heard this
piece of news on VOA: this 50-year-old Congresswoman did something
courageous by displaying a banner that read: "Dedicated to the martyrs
who died for democracy in China" right there in Tiananmen Square.
The result was obvious: she was immediately tackled by a bunch of military
police men and then expelled from China. For the past 16 years, this
photograph is prominently displace in Pelosi's office. Every year when
the Chinese democrats attend the 6/4 memorial service in front of the
Chinese embassy, Pelosi can often be seen.

This past
May, I was attending the Forum On Religious Freedom and Law in Washington
DC. During the time, I also attended a forum of the Laogai Foundation
and I met Ms. Pelosi. She was invited to give the opening
address. She wore a light dress with a bright scarf, and she looked
elegant. By comparison, another "strong woman" of about the
same age is Chinese vice-premier Wu Yi, who is stiff, bloated, old and
feeble.

Looks and style are connected to the
political system and cultural environment: Pelosi's dashing energy reminds
people of "freedom" whereas Wu Yi's lack of gender characteristics
reminds people of "autocracy."

Those reporters on the China-US beat will know
Pelosi. When I was covering Hong Kong-US and China-US news in
Washington DC more than a decade ago, Pelosi is the congresswoman whom the
Hong Kong reporters have the most contact with. She often speaks about
Hong Kong issue in Congress. ...

Some Hong Kong
reporters may think of Pelosi as an old friend. For me, she is too
political because she is only counting votes in her heart. At least
when I dealt with her, I could not sense any "genuineness" in her
at all.

First, let us examine her congressional
district and we will know why she speaks about Hong Kong actively.
Pelosi's 8th district covers most of San Francisco city, including the
Chinese community. ... Faced with several hundred thousand Chinese
voters, Pelosi obviously has to include the issues that these Chinese care
about. Yet, in terms of what a politician should do within a
democratic system, Pelosi's speeches are too empty and showed that she does
not know much.

One should not assume that since she
is a Democrat who chants "Long Live Democracy" that she must be a
human rights fighter. Actually, she is no different from Hillary
Clinton as both are equally experienced and astute. You listen to
their speeches on the Israel-Palestine problem and you realize that they are
thoroughly politicians.

There is a big Jewish
lobbyist organization known as AIPAC in Washington DC. The board of
directors are all political and business heavyweights and Pelosi is very
friendly with them. Pelosi takes part in their events where she gives
speeches to support Israel's "occupation" policies. The
double standards of politicians are clearly revealed here.

[082] The Kidney
Theft Ring of Guangzhou (11/20/2006) (YCWB via Sina.com)
A Chinese netizen has been sent to jail for exercising his freedom of
speech. On October 30, a man named Zhu from Yongqing county (Hunan
province) went on a certain well-known web portal and posted under the
nickname "hao

鄄hao985198"
an essay titled "Shocking! Guangzhou Kidney Theft Ring
Madly Committing Crime." He was tracked down by the police and
sentenced to five days of administrative detention. The light sentence
was in consideration that Zhu admitted that he had spread a rumor that
created public panic and disrupted public order and he was profoundly sorry
and rueful for that. Here is the short summary of the post:

At Guangzhou University, it is a tradition to celebrate
after the mid-term examinations. This male student attended the party
on a Saturday night. He felt very happy, he drank a lot of wine and
then some girls were interested in him and invited him to attend another
party. So he went with them in a taxi to another apartment. They
continued to drink and he took some drugs.

When he
woke up, he found himself naked in a bathtub filled with ice. He
looked at his chest, and the letters "Call 110 or you will die"
had been written with red lipstick. There was a phone next to the
tub. He called 110. He told 110 about his situation and that he
had no idea where he was. 110 advised to get out of the tub and check
himself in the mirror. He did and saw nothing unusual. 110 then
told him to check his back. He saw two 9-inch long openings on his
lower back. 110 told him to get back into the tub immediately and wait
for the emergency team. The doctors found out that his kidneys had
been stolen! In the black market, a pair of kidneys are worth 300,000
RMB! ...

The real crime committed by Zhu might just be plagiarism or
lack of originality. The kidney theft story is an urban legend that
goes back to 1996 (see Snopes).
Zhu did not even attempt to modify the story except to translate the location
from Texas to Guangzhou.

Taichung Mayor Jason Hu's wife Shao Hsiao-ling, who was
seriously injured in a car accident on Saturday night, remained in critical
condition as of press time, having to rely on medication and life support
after having her left forearm amputated and her spleen removed in hours of
emergency treatment at Chi Mei Hospital in the southern county of Tainan.
Hu himself suffered a minor concussion and lacerations to the face.

The accident took place at 7:51 p.m. on a north-bound lane
of the second national freeway, at around 325.3 kilometers south of Taipei,
where the van carrying Hu, Shao and close sides was slammed by a small
sedan. The van rolled over a few times after hitting the car, the police
said.

Yesterday, Apple Daily showed the bloody photograph of
Taichung Mayor's wife Shao Hsiao-ling on the front page. Government
Information Office Minister Cheng Wen-tsang angrily criticized the newspaper
for violating the integrity and right to privacy of Shao. He has
called the Taipei city information office director Lo Chih-cheng
and asked Apple Daily to be punished. He emphasized, "If the
Taipei city government won't deal with it, the Government Information Office
will step in."

The Taipei city Information Office believes that Apple
Daily violated that "child and youth welfare laws" and has
referred the case to the Social Welfare Department. They will hold an
interdepartmental meeting to determine the most effective approach based on
the existing laws.

But the Social Welfare Department director Chang Shu-wen
said that in the absence of specific complaints to show that children or
youth were actually negatively affected by the news photographs, the
department cannot impose any penalties.

Apple Daily chief editor Chen Yu-hsin responded that Cheng
Wen-tsang had overstepped in his criticism which Apple Daily cannot
accept. Chen Yu-hsin said that the photograph in Apple Daily was taken
in an open public space before Shao Hsiao-ling was taken to the Chi Mei
Hospital. Furthermore, this traffic accident is an important event
that has drawn the attention of the national public. Apple Daily dealt
with this case in no way different from any other traffic accidents in the
past.

The Taiwanese edition of Apple Daily apologised
yesterday for printing a front-page picture of the wife of a popular
Taiwanese politician covered in blood after being critically injured in a
car accident.

The apology came after sharp criticism from
the island's media regulator, the Government Information Office, that it was
highly improper to publish such a picture without taking into account the
victim's right to privacy.

In a statement issued in Taipei, Apple
Daily said it had merely hoped to use the picture to present the
actuality of a news scene. "We apologise if readers disapprove or feel
uncomfortable about the photograph we published," it said.

Apple Daily declares that the traffic accident was an
issue that the people were concerned about and the photograph was taken in a
public place, therefore the decision was made to publish the
photograph. In respect to the principal, portions of the photograph
were masked. Apple Daily states that it will listen humbly listen to
criticisms from readers and apologizes to the principals and readers.
In the future, we will be more careful about the selection and handling of
traffic accident photographs. We welcome continued reader feedback.

[080] Taiwan By The
Numbers (11/20/2006) (China
Times) (1,122 persons interviewed on November 15-17 using the
telephone directory as the sampling frame)

Q. Should Taipei city mayor Ma Ying-jeou resign immediately due to the
special funds scandal?Yes 18%; No 73%; No opinion 8% [breakdown by politics: pan-blue no 84%;
pan-green no 55%]

Q. If Ma Ying-jeou should be formally charged, what should his political
responsibility be? (Multiple choices allowed)Wait until the outcome of the first trial 35%; resign from the mayorship
22%; resign as KMT Party chairman 13%; announce that he won't run for
president 9%; retire from politics 6%; none of the above 11%; no opinion 5%.

[079] The Exclusive
MPW Interview (11/19/2006) This is a media
story that appeared in issue #1984 of Ming Pao Weekly. The original
exclusive interview with actress Elaine Ng appeared in issue #1614 (October
1999).
At the time, Elaine was single and six months pregnant.
Rumors were swirling around about the identity of the father and the
paparazzis were camped out outside her apartment. So Elaine had
basically locked herself in and refused to come out. MPW reporter Wong
Lai-ling was able to obtain permission for an exclusive interview. She
recounts that event in the most recent issue of MPW.

At first, Elaine Ng was tense and evasive. Her answers were vague and uninformative, and it took a while for her to relax.
Elaine found out that she was pregnant more than two months in. Her
first reaction: "I don't know what to do. This was an
accident." Who was the first other person to know?
"The child's father." How did he react? "Ha, ha,
ha." She laughed dryly and said nothing for a while. The
question was repeated. Finally she replied slowly: "It was not a
good reaction." Did he ask her to get an abortion?
"Perhaps we have different views about a life!"

Did she change her own mind once she found out how the other party
felt? "I struggled for a while. I talked to my mom.
She is a Christian and a traditional woman. She said: 'This is a
living person. You must act responsibly as a result of your own
actions. You may find it difficult, but you are responsible.' I
thought about it again. If I were only seventeen, I might have been
stuck. But I am already twenty-seven and I can deal with a new life
coming into the world."

Will the child's father be responsible for paying the living expenses of the
child? "He said that it was none of his business. I will
bring up the child. This is my daughter. She shall have my last
name, Ng." How did she feel towards him? Love or
hate? "It is just ordinary. No love, no hate. If I
told you that I was never angry at him, I would be lying. But all that
is in the past."

Then came the crucial question from the reporter: If you claim that you will
act responsibly towards the child, then why can't you deal with the big
question of "Who is the father? Is Jackie Chan the father of your
child?" At that moment, Elaine made a resolution and said firmly:
"Yes. It is true. But I hope that people will not ask me
again. This will be the only time that I answer this
question." Later on, Elaine was interviewed on television and her
response to the same question was a wordless nod.

So that was the substance of the story. Now for the media story.
Because this was an explosive exclusive, the editors decided to increase the
print run by 30,000 copies. The content had to be kept confidential,
especially about the identity of the father. In order to ensure that
that were no leaks, the photographs had to developed and chosen while no one
else was around. The article was written by Wong Lai-ling at home and
then brought back to the office after midnight when no one else was around and
then entered into the computer system.

So Wong Lai-ling worked late that night and went back home early in the
morning to sleep. Meanwhile, the magazine had appeared on the
newsstands. When Wong woke up, she spoke to Elaine Ng, who asked her:
"Were you under so much pressure that you did not dare publish that
sentence?" What!!!??? Wong Lai-ling rushed out to obtain a
copy of the magazine and then saw that only about half the text was printed
-- that most important dialogue was absent! Late in the previous night,
Wong Lai-ling had been unsure about typesetting and forwarded the files (texts
and photographs) to a colleague in the Art Department. In her email
attachment, she omitted the file that contained the important
dialogue. This was the biggest mistake in the history of Ming Pao
Weekly over several decades!

(The
Sun) Yesterday, Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing was asked
whether the case of Singapore Strait Times top reporter Ching Cheong has
received attention. But Li Zhaoxing asked the reporters instead: Who
is Ching Cheong? When the varying answers of "a Hong Kong
person" and "a Chinese person" were received, this veteran
diplomat immediately asked the reporters to figure out the status of Ching
Cheong first.

(Apple
Daily) Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing was at the breakfast
meeting between President Hu Jintao and HK SAR Chief Executive Donald Tsang,
and was therefore asked whether the case of Ching Cheong came up.
Instead, Li asked the reporter: "Who is Ching Cheong?" When
one reporter said that he was a special correspondent for Singapore's Strait
Times, Li asked: "So is he a Chinese citizen or foreigner?"
When he heard one reporter say "a Hong Kong person" and another
reporter say "a Chinese person," Li immediately asked the
reporters to figure out the status of Ching Cheong before asking. Then
he left the scene without answering the question. Since Li was present
at the Hu-Tsang meeting and he asked the reporters, "Who is Ching
Cheong?" this makes one wonder if Tsang brought up the case of Ching
Cheong at the meeting.

[077] Taiwan By The
Numbers (11/18/2006) (ERA
TV) (836 persons age 20 or over interviewed by telephone on
the evening of November 16. Sample was drawn using the residential
telephone directory with the last two digits being randomized)

Q1. Taipei city mayor Ma Ying-jeou said that he was
unaware of the falsified receipts used to claim special funds. Do you
believe Ma Ying-jeou is innocent?Yes 41%; No 27%; Don't know/refused 32%

Q2. Taipei city mayor Ma Ying-jeou is embroiled in this special fund
business. Are you satisfied with his crisis management?Yes 34%; No 36%; Don't know/refused 30%

Q3. Do you believe that Taipei city mayor Ma Ying-jeou should resign
as a result?Yes 17%; No 58%; Don't know/refused 25%

Q5. Comparing the case of President Chen Shui-bian's state funds and Ma
Ying Jeou's special funds, which of these cases have a greater impact on the city
mayoral elections in Kaohsiung and Taipei?Chen Shui-bian 50%; Ma Ying-jeou 10%; Same 16%; No impact from either 4%;
Don't know/refused 20%.

(China
Times) (1,019 persons interviewed by telephone on the evenings
of November 15-16. Sample was drawn using the residential telephone
directory with the last two digits being randomized)

Q. Do you believe that the Democratic Progressive Party is clean and
uncorrupt?Yes 14%; No 68%
[in June 2006, the same question had Yes 13%; No 56%]

Q. Do you believe that the KMT is clean and uncorrupt?Yes 23%; No 53%
[in June 2006, the same question had Yes 16%; No 49%]

Q. Which of the four major political parties do you trust to rule?KMT 45%; DPP 11%; PFP 3%; TSU 2%; None of them 20%.

[076] Zhang Yu's
Videos (11/18/2006) Actress Zhang Yu has been going around for
years complaining against certain directors and producers for demanding
sexual favors in exchange for acting assignments. So what?
Everybody knows about that, beginning with the Hollywood casting
couch. After a while, all this talk gets boring even though Sina.com
devoted a special section to her.

So Zhang Yu has just upped the ante. In a blog
post, she announced: "I will not be a silent woman
anymore. I will show everything." She then links to a video
hosted at YoQoo.com.
That video has been viewed more than 300,000 times already within 12
hours. Here are some screen captures.

Zhang Yu claims that this will just be the first of many more
episodes. At what point will the "authorities" step in?

[075] They Hold
Elections (11/18/2006) Female writer Tie Ning has just been
elected as chairman of the China Writers Association. Here is Jiang
Xun's description of the process in Yazhou Zhoukan (Asia Weekly; November 26,
2006, p.48-49).

The China Writers Association has 7,690 members. In its more than
fifty years of history, there has only been two chairmen: Mo Dun and Ba
Jin. The previous chairman Ba Jin passed away a year ago. At
this year's conference, 953 representatives got together to elect 199
national committee members. In this vote, one can vote for as many
people as one likes. Among all the vote-getters, Tie Ning came in dead
last. Everybody in the new national committee received more than 800
votes whereas Tie Ning got 790+.

In the next phase, the chairman was to be elected. Again Tie Ying
received the lowest number of votes at 161. So how did Tie Ning wind
up as the chairman whereas all the other vice-chairmen got more than 170
votes? Why even pretend to have an election when the outcome was
fixed?

During the discussion of the list of candidates, the major figure was then
China Writers Association vice-chairman Wang Meng. But a group of
veteran writers wrote to state their objection. So the final decision
was this -- anyone older than seventy years old will be excluded from the
national committee. Thus Wang Meng and eight others became 'honorary'
vice-chairmen of the national committee and 117 persons were 'honorary'
members of the national committee.

[074] The South Route
007 (11/18/2006) (Taipei
Times) Back in July, legislator Chiu Yi had described Taiwan
businessman Chiu Ta-wei as the person who was conducting secret diplomatic
missions under project "South Route." According to Chiu Yi,
this project was a cover for the president's embezzlement of state affairs
funds. The case broke open when Chiu Ta-wei's wife Ligi Lee found out
her personal expenses had been turned over by her cousin Lee Bi-chun to the
First Lady in order to get reimbursement from the state affairs account.

(Apple
Daily) Yesterday morning at 130am, Ligi Lee brought along
about ten people to the place of a woman named Hsia. The group entered
the apartment through the unlocked door and found Chiu Ta-wei naked and Hsia
in her pajamas. Hsia said in terror: "Who are you people?
What are you doing?" Chiu dashed into the bathroom and locked the
door. Lee asked her companions to kick down the door and took
photographs. Lee looked at Chiu and said:

你還真是寶刀不老啊！
(Your sword has not gone dull!) and 喔，這樣要怎麼當007！
(Oh, so this is how you play 007!)

The police were summoned and the three were taken down to the police
station. At the station, Ligi Lee roared, 這就是陳水扁要找的諜報人員，通姦、說謊、傷害，蛇鼠一窩。
(This is the spy that Chen Shui-bian wants to find. Adultery, lies,
breaking up the family. A nest of snakes and rats.)

(Apple
Daily) Previously Chiu had an Australian court grant a divorce
after a long and bitter legal battle. Among the long list of 'irreconcilable differences' are Chiu's claim that Lee went to this
apartment and used scissors to cut up a couple dozen of his suits.
Chiu also complained that Lee was a spendthrift and ran up a huge bill at
the Grand Hotel, and those receipts would eventually show up in the state
affairs account.

In Taiwan, Ligi Lee and her entourage would be guilty of illegal entry if
Lee and Chiu are divorced. However, a lawyer pointed out that the
marriage is still valid in Taiwan until as such times when Chiu registers
the fact.

強吻!娜娜!))
was sentenced yesterday to two months in jail. The magistrate said
that the sentence was necessary as a public deterrent.

[072] The
Transvestite Prostitutes of Fuzhou (11/17/2006) (NetEase)
In Fuzhou, the police decided to run a sting operation against prostitutes
that evening. An undercover policeman showed up at the Guangminggang
park. Two "women" then approached him and propositioned
him. The militia police quickly charged in. When one of the
"women" was arrested, a wig fell off. The suspect quickly explained: "I'm a man." Although the two men looked and
sounded like women, their fake boobs fell off as soon as they pulled up
their shirts.
What were they doing there??? The police is investigating.

[071] How To Block An
Intersection (If You Must) (11/17/2006) (Phoenix
TV) In Nanchong city, Sichuan province, a taxi driver was
stabbed by a robber for refusing to hand over his money. Other taxi
drivers called 110 emergency police response When the police arrived,
it was 30 minutes later and the victim had died. To show their
dissatisfaction, the taxi drivers of Nanchong blocked the major
intersections.

[070] Revised
Statistics (11/17/2006) With respect to Statistics of Mass Incidents,
I have received detailed feedback and the following revision has been made
to distinguish between "mass incidents" and "public order
disturbances."

A 'mass incident' refers to the incident
(such as protest, demonstration or assembly) which usually involves large
numbers of people (e.g. 10,000 people rioting at a university over their
diplomas).

A 'public
order disturbance' is an individual crime and the number of people do not
come into it. There are 28 articles and 37 crimes written into the
People's Republic of China Code of Criminal Law. The categories
include provocation/troublemaking, gambling, running underworld criminal
organizations, obstruction of
official business, fighting with weapons in a mob fight, delaying the delivery
of mail, holding mass orgies, computer hacking, making and selling fake
police uniforms, forging ID cards, burning national flags, corpse desecration, etc.

For
example, if I was caught selling fake police uniforms, then I am the sole
criminal. This is a 'public order disturbance' (Article 281) because
my action caused social mistrust of people in uniforms. The number of
actual people who lost their trust is not known with any precision. As
another example, if a group of five hackers went and crippled the People's
Daily website, they would be guilty of "disturbing the public
order" (Article 285 and Article 286 of the PRC Code of Criminal
Law). This is one incident with five criminals. How would that
be counted in the statistics? One or five? But the number of
people affected is not known with any precision. Neither of these two
examples may be considered "mass incidents" because the number of
public members affected is not known to any precision.

It was therefore wrong to assume that "mass
incidents" are a subset of "public order disturbances."
No, these are in fact two different concepts that work on different bases.

[069] Another
Internet Manhunt (11/17/2006) Late last month, a Beijing blogger
Lao An published some street photographs at A
Foreign Lady in Beijing about a foreign female
bicyclist's argument with a Chinese driver over his presence in the bicycle
lane. An update has been published at China
Daily.

A Beijing driver who infamously threw aside
the bicycle of a foreign woman who had blocked his way has apologized to her
on television. The driver, surnamed Niu, apologized in response to a
barrage of criticism after photographs of the incident were plastered on the
Internet. "I must say sorry to the foreign lady. I acted too
rashly at that time. I shouldn't have thrown her bicycle to the
ground," Niu said on a popular Beijing TV programme.

The incident occurred after the woman
confronted Niu, assuming he had been driving in a bicycles-only lane. Niu
said he had not violated any traffic rules. Traffic police testified that he
had been driving on a road of mixed traffic, open to both cars and bicycles.

The incident had hurt him and his family
greatly, said Niu, noting he had changed his home phone number.
Internet users had bombarded him with phone calls denouncing his behaviour
of October 20.

... "All
netizens please help find the identities of the driver and the foreign
lady," said one posting. The much-read posting, written by
popular blogger Mo Jie, also called on netizens to denounce the driver.
"We must get him to realize that his behaviour is smearing the
country's image and the face of Beijing," said the posting.

Netizens quickly answered the calls to name
the driver, posting his home phone number and other personal information on
the Internet. Some netizens said the foreign woman worked for an
American company near the scene, but no further information about her was
revealed.

"The incident shows two things,"
says one of the blog articles. "It shows the Chinese are
self-reflecting people and readily accept positive criticism. It also shows
the terrifying power of the Internet, its power to mobilize people and bare
secrets."

How did it work? The photograph of
the driver was published, for one thing.
While the blogger did not originally published the license plate number, he
provided it to Southern
Daily for their front cover story!

Letter #1: I kept my silence when
EastSouthWestNorth announced he wanted to take over society's eyes, ears,
mind, and spirit. I did nothing when he tried to take us over the edge of
the abyss of mental serfdom. But his latest criticisms are the straw that
breaks the camel's back. Let me begin by citing a range of examples from the
public sphere. For starters, I believe in "live and let live".
EastSouthWestNorth, in contrast, demands not only tolerance and acceptance
of his sermons but endorsement of them. It's because of such careless
demands that I insist that his attempts to leave behind a legacy of
perpetual indebtedness everywhere are much worse than mere stoicism. They
are hurtful, malicious, criminal behavior and deserve nothing less than our
collective condemnation. Lastly, EastSouthWestNorth's constant whining and
yammering is a background noise that never seems to go away.

Letter
#2: I occasionally receive inquiries from people who have read my
previous blog posts and want to know why I insist that I sincerely intend to
exercise my franchise to reveal the nature and activity of
EastSouthWestNorth's goombahs and expose their inner contexts as well as
their ultimate final aims. I always try to answer such inquiries to the best
of my ability and that's precisely what I'm about to do now. Wait! Before
you dismiss me as infantile, hear me out. EastSouthWestNorth's more than
viperine. He's mega-viperine. In fact, to understand just how viperine
EastSouthWestNorth is, you first need to realize that he keeps saying that
he is forward-looking, open-minded, and creative. For some reason,
EastSouthWestNorth's hangers-on actually believe this nonsense. Although
EastSouthWestNorth obviously hates my guts (and probably yours, as well),
EastSouthWestNorth is locked into his present course of community
destruction. He does not have the interest or the will to change his
fundamentally dotty obiter dicta. I hope I haven't bored you with yet
another blog post about EastSouthWestNorth. Still, this post was the best
way to explain to you that I am highly critical of those who tolerate or
apologize for people who work with EastSouthWestNorth.

[067] Taiwan By The
Numbers (11/16/2006) (TVBS)
(928 persons age 20 or older interviewed on the evening of November 15)

Q: Approval rating of Ma Ying-jeou43% (compared to 52% in October during the siege of the President's
Office)

Q: Is Ma Ying-jeou clean?Yes: 63%; No: almost 20%.

Q: Do you believe in Ma Ying-jeou when he said that he was not corrupt
with respect to the mayor's special fund?Yes: 57%; No: 27%

Q: On the problem with receipts, is Ma Ying-jeou the same as Chen
Shui-bian?Different: 50%; Same 33%.

[066] Underwear MM
(11/16/2006) My goal is to sit here and record the barriers of the
Great Internet Firewall break down bit by bit. This is not about 'subversive speech' creeping in, but all the other social taboos being
breached one after another. Following Wilhelm Reich, I never believe
that there is a difference between political life and the rest of
life. On this date, I note the emergence of the Underwear MM blogger (

内衣
MM).

Once upon a time, Song Jiaobao
(宋嘉宝) was
another no-name blogger who was unsuccessful trying to sell female underwear
on the Internet. Nobody cared. Then she got inspired with the
idea that maybe she can personally model her product line. Here are
some of her photos.

Her blog got popular all of a sudden. While it is true that there any
many forum/blog posts denouncing her as a 'slut,' her page views jumped sky-high. Whether she will be able to become a millionaire remains in
doubt, but this is another historical moment. These photographs are
simply not more sinful than that which already appears at numerous websites
(although they usually use stock photographs of Japanese models). So
why shouldn't a Chinese national use similar photographic poses for
commercial purposes?

NET LOSS PER DAY: HK$80,000, which translates to 20 x
HK$80,000 = HK$1.6 million per month.

[064] Ma Ying-jeou:
The Case for Moral Relativism (11/15/2006) Now it is the turn
of Taipei City mayor and KMT chairman Ma Ying-jeou to face questions about
misuse of "special government expenses."

There are two issues. The first issue is that some of his expense
allowance is directly paid into his personal bank account instead of being
used for public affairs. In other words, he is treating it as
additional income. In his own defense, Ma said that he is doing what
6,500 other officials (including Vice-President Annette Lu and Premier Su
Tseng-chang) are doing. "If I am corrupt, everybody else is
corrupt too." So that is the first example of moral
relativism. So it is not about the absolute right or wrong; it is
about common practice -- if everybody steals money, then it is alright for
me to do that too.

The second issue is one official has been falsifying documents in accounting
for the expenses. It seems that rather than dealing with a whole stack
of petty cash receipts (such as buying a box lunch, etc), this official
lessened his workload by submitting unrelated receipts in larger
amounts. The original receipts are all there, so this is not a case of
embezzlement. However, the city government admits that documents were
falsified, and that is a crime.

Will Ma's supporter resorts to a defense based upon moral relativism.
Previously, President's Chen Shui-bian's defenders have used moral
relativism, as in "Corruption was more blatant and extensive before
Ah-Bian became president, so why pick on Ah-Bian now?" So Ma's
supporters may say, "Ah Bian's underlings can falsify documents and
commit perjury, so why pick on Ma Ying-jeou now?" This has not
happened yet, but that would be very ugly.

Here is another piece of moral relativism used as political weapon. Ma
Ying Jeou is about to finish his term as Taipei city mayor. What if he
were to get up and say, "Someone in my office decided to take shortcuts
in filing paperwork without my knowledge. That is very wrong. As
the top city official, I own the ultimate responsibility. Therefore, I
apologize to the people and I step down from my job ahead of time. I
do this in the interest of sparing the government and the people from more
political squabbling. This will allow the government to get back to
its mission of serving the people. That is what matters most, not my
personal vanity." If the mayor of Taipei city can say that, why
can't the President?

The American
magazine Fortune published its rankings of "2006
corporate social responsibility." China National
Petroleum Corporation and State Grid took over the last two positions (#63
and #64). This is quite different from their rankings of #39 and #32
in the Fortune Global 500 list.

When
we speak of corporate social responsibility, we immediately think about this
incident: the contamination of the Songhua River from the explosion at the
China National Petroleum Corporation. That did tremendous damage to
the environment and disrupted the lives of millions of citizens. We
can also recall the debate about how excessive pay for state enterprise
employees from the story of "Electric meter reader gets paid 100,000
RMB per year." The consequence of the excessive pay are borne by
the customers who have to pay higher rates. Therefore, neither company
needs to defend or challenge why they are at the bottom of the rankings,
because it is their shame!

But I always believe the
problem with the state enterprises is one about the government and not the
companies themselves. Without the protection of the government,
wouldn't China National Petroleum Corporation be bankrupt as a result of the
Songhua River contamination incident? Without the government, can the
state monopolies (in electricity, tobacco, telecommunications, etc) be
monopolies and so can they have the money to pay those amazingly high
salaries to their employees?

[062] Gödel's
Incompleteness Theorem (11/15/2006) (Wikipedia)
Gödel's first incompleteness theorem is perhaps the most celebrated result in mathematical logic. It states that:
For any consistent formal theory that proves basic arithmetical truths, it is possible to construct an arithmetical statement that is true1 but not provable in the theory. That is, any theory capable of expressing elementary arithmetic cannot be both consistent and complete.

This comment has nothing to do yet another butchered/tortured interpretation
of Gödel's mathematical theorem. This is instead a statement about
how reality is perhaps unknowable in spite of the efforts of journalists.

The empirical case study is the personnel moves at the South China Morning
Post. Upon information and belief, certain members of the Sunday
Morning Post either left voluntarily or were dismissed. This caused
certain staff members to be dissatisfied and they took action by contacting
the Chinese-language media. The Chinese-language reports (in Apple
Daily and Ming Pao) were translated here at Comment
200611#049.
This is about what one can expect by interviewing one or more sources from
one side via telephone and asking what are believed to be the right
questions; meanwhile, the other side declined to comment. The
reporters referred to these conditions, but the reality is that the
information is asymmetric. In retrospect given other developments,
parts of the Chinese-language reports may be subject to misinterpretation.

A much more thorough job is done by Asia Sentinel at No Joking Please, Were Journalists,
because the reporter was able to interview five SCMP members and view all
the relevant documents (e.g. the mock-up SCMP front page and the Mark
Clifford email). If we compare the gap between the initial
Chinese-language reports and the Asia Sentinel report, then it leaves us
with uneasiness about everything that we read in newspapers. Which end
of the spectrum are we typically getting? We don't know because we are
not God (or Gödel). Most of the time, we will be left to our own
devices with our own "plausibility tests."

I think that many
of you know about the Sichuan story (note: Comment
200611#051). I saw the Internet public opinions and I visited
the official news websites as well as other media outlets in order to read
the various viewpoints. Since reports reflect the leanings of the
respective positions of the sources, I wanted to find reports that are more
neutral and complete.

So I read the official news
reports. I got the idea that the child drank the pesticide at 16:40,
he was brought to the hospital at 18:30 and he expired at 19:30. There
was only a description of the clash with excessive action between the family
members and the doctors. The mainland China mainstream media carried
the standard report and they did not mention that this became a mass
incident. Hong Kong and overseas media interviewed local officials by
telephone to confirm the mass incident, but were told that no mass incident
took place.

But certain details raised
questions. For example, the local government said that the hospital
was still functioning normally, but the non-mainland reporters found certain
hospital workers (who did not want their names revealed) who said that the
hospital was not providing outpatient services for the moment. So you
can imagine and conjecture, and the question is, Who is lying about the
present state of the hospital?

As for whether the
hospital rendered treatment in a timely manner, the government formed an
independent panel of experts who concluded that the cause of the death was
the severity of the condition in spite of the hospital doing its best.
The local newspapers therefore said that "one cannot speculate or
spread rumors based upon subjective opinions, because it will mislead the
public and disrupt social order."

At this time,
my questions are: Why are such rumors so easily believed by the
people? Why do most people here not trust hospitals? Could it
that too much discontent has accumulated, so that it is all released in this
moment? If so, then shouldn't the local officials responsible for
overseeing medical and healthcare really reflect on their work?

Since
the newspaper were publishing editorials about the case, this proves that
the case was serious. I do not believe that a simple dispute about
medical treatment requires newspaper editorials and an investigative panel
of experts. Even if there was a mass incident, there was no need to
cover it up. These days, the more someone tries to cover up, the
quicker rumors will fly and things will get worse. Such examples have
always existed in China. I remember the Songhua River incident last
year. If the relevant departments had responded quickly and increased
transparency, the matter would have moved in another direction.

But
I still have another question -- if there really was a dispute, then why did
it turn into violence? Faced with an assembly of citizens who are
possibly emotional, the local officials are being tested for their
administrative ability. If these officials cannot appropriately and
correctly handle the situation, then shouldn't they be held responsible for
the escalation into violence?

I do not believe that
in each real clash, the socially vulnerable group is always right. If
that is the rule, then this society is unhealthy. So that is why
government officials complain about their situation because people always
assume that they are wrong. The problem is whether the socially
vulnerable groups feel that they have to resort to extreme methods because
they have lost confidence in the judicial system and they have no other
means to protect their rights. If so, then the government officials
must ask themselves why they let the citizens live in such a social
environment.

I do not believe that it is right to
employ extreme methods to protect one's rights. But if these
people lack any concept of the rule of law, then the government officials
should create the right environment in which the rule of law works and
explain to the people how it works. If people do what they do because
they have no other choice, then the government officials need to reflect
every time that a clash occurs.

Just then, the
television program "Appointment in Shangdong/Henan" showed a story
about a Chinese war journalist in Gaza. I did not catch the episode
title and therefore I skipped the name of the reporter. The story was
shocking, so I will narrate some of the segments for you.

Segment
1: One day, the reporter was filming in the street. Someone tapped him
from behind. The reporter turned out and saw a child. The child
pointed at something in his hand and said, "This is a hand
grenade." The reporter looked at it and said, "Hmm, I
know." Then he turned out to continuing filming. The child
tapped him once again and said, "This is a hand grenade!"
Then the child stared into the questioning eyes of the reporter, pulled the
safety pin and threw the hand grenade behind him. A loud explosion
followed:

Segment 2: One day, the reporter was
filming in the middle of the street. Someone behind him yelled:
"Don't move! Raise your hands!" The reporter turned around
and saw a child pointing a gun at this head. The reporter said:
"I don't like people pointing guns at my head. Fake guns will do
it." So he grabbed the gun from the child's hand. Then he
realized that it was a fully loaded gun with the safety catch off ...

Segment
3: The reporter heard that Israel will surround and clean up a certain
refugee camp. So he entered the refugee camp beforehand and tried to
find a good spot to take photographs from. Two locals came over and
said, "Hi, Japanese?" "No, Chinese."
"Okay, let's come to my house and have a cup of coffee."
This is the typical way to treat guests, so the reporter went with
them. Once they turned around the corner, the two Palestinians turned
around, pulled out guns and pointed them at the reporter's head. One
of them said something in Hebrew. Later on, the reporter found out
that the phrase was "Kill him." According to the reporter's
analysis afterwards, they did not shoot because he had no idea what the
phrase meant. The reporter then said: "Foreign languages are not
good things. It is better not to learn them. Knowing putonghua
is enough."

Aren't these segments fun?
This is a true story that happened in our world ...

[059] EasyFinder
Strikes Again (11/14/2006) (Sohu.com via Wenxue
City) Even as EasyFinder has formally landed in court for the
Gillian Chung article, this week's issue was another one that made copies of
EasyFinder hard to find at Hong Kong newsstands.

The front page-cover story is an investigative report on Li Yapeng, Faye
Wong and their daughter with snoop photographs taken over several months in
Beijing and the United States.
According to the EasyFinder reporter, this was their second trip. On
the first trip, they took pictures of the Children's Hospital where the baby
reportedly underwent surgery to repair her cleft palate, but they had no
real story otherwise. Then they saw the Sohu.com photo of Faye Wong
provided by an American netizen and so they decided to make a second
trip. They visited the restaurant at which the photograph was
taken. They used many means and they located the house where the
family was staying. On October 22, October 24, November 9 and November
11, the team took photographs of the family in the United States and
Beijing. Their boss was happy and issued them material rewards.

In reaction, Li Yapeng's agent said: "I was not there in the United
States, so I don't have an opinion. The text probably contains much
imaginary things and speculations." Then she laughed and said:
"They are quite 'professional' because they know enough to blur out the
baby's face." Then she said: "This affair has been going on
long enough, Can we put a stop to this and give Li Yapeng, Faye Wong
and the child some space to live quietly?" She hopes that people
would pay more attention to the "Cleft Palate Foundation."

[058] My Hiking Trip
(11/14/2006) Well, it never happened. But this is a
media-related question based upon my personal experience. On this past
Sunday afternoon, my plan was to take the #81 bus from Kowloon, get off at
the Shek Lei Pui Reservoir and then take a hike in the Kam Shan Country Park
trail. This would have an easy hike because most of it is on paved
road and covers many reservoir dams. So I stood at the Nathan Road bus
stop north of the Prince Edward MTR station and waited for the bus.
For more than half a hour, not a single bus (#81 or
anything else) came down Nathan Road. Along with many other angry potential bus riders, I
could see that all buses were being diverted off Nathan Road down at the Lai
Chi Kok junction. No bus was ever going to come. So I abandoned
my plans.

What else can I do on this Sunday afternoon? I decided to take a walk
up Cheung Sha Wan Road to the Golden Shopping Arcade to check out the
technology products (computers, games, etc). On the way, I found out
that the buses were being diverted because a street march was scheduled at
that time. Anyway, I went to the Golden Shopping Arcade and saw all
the ridiculously marked-up prices for Sony PS3 game stations that the
vendors probably did not really have. On the way back, I made the
mistake of hopping on a bus. I was stuck on this bus for more than
half an hour, because the march was now in progress and all vehicular
traffic was held up. Eventually, I asked the bus driver to open the
door and let me walk home. On the way, I observed that there were
major traffic tie-ups in all directions on account of this march. This
was on a Sunday, but the traffic tie-up was the worst that I have ever seen
(for example, all the way down Prince Edward Road eastbound as far as I can
see from the top of the pedestrian bridge).

So what? On the next day, I tried to read about this demonstration
march of thousands of people in all the online newspaper websites.
Thousand of people at this march means that the number was greater than some
of the "universal suffrage" marches widely reported by the global
media and definitely more than the four or five people of the "April
Fifth movement" charging official receptions with black paper
coffins. All of the aforementioned incidents were fervently covered
regularly by the local press. But there was
nothing whatsoever in the local media about this particular march: from Apple Daily to Ming Pao to Sing
Tao to Oriental Daily to Ta Kung Pao. Never mind the English-language
South China Morning Post or The Hong Kong Standard. And you know the
score: if it is not reported, it didn't happen!

I leave it as an exercise: Why did a thousand-person-strong street march
get totally ignored by Hong Kong media? If the media outlets advertise
themselves as reporting all the news that is worth reporting, then why was
this a universal exception? The answer should be obvious ...

Hint: If you lie often enough, nobody will ever believe you. More
precisely, if your first name is "truth" and your practice is
"lies," the media get disinterested.

A few days ago,
the telephone rang.
"How are you? Is this Professor He Weifang?"
"This is he. You are ..."
"I am XXX with the China Justice Administration magazine at the
Ministry of Justice. I would like to discuss something with you."
I know about that magazine. I even attended one of their forums
several years ago. "Please go ahead."
"It is like this. Our magazine would like to expand the list of
our directors. You are responsible for the Peking University research
center on the judicial system. We would really like to get your
consent to list your unit as part of the board of directors."
"But ... what does a director have to do?"
"Oh, mainly to participate in the ordinary activities of our
unit."
I was a bit dubious. Previously, this publication had organized some
evaluation of the articles in the magazine, but I was invited personally to
participate. How can my unit participate?
"That is to say, you will list our center in your magazine in order to
show influence. Anything else?"
"Thirty thousand RMB per year."
I was suddenly delighted. As a director only in name while making
30,000 RMB, it is worthwhile to consider this because of the additional
research funds.
"It is not a lot. But we need to organize some events through the
year. Therefore, each director unit pays 30,000 RMB. That is not
a lot."
Then I understood -- we had to give them 30,000 RMB. Oh, what a way to
make money!
"Sorry, there is no need to say anything more. Please tell your
boss that we will not participate in your so-called board of
directors. Furthermore, what you are doing is really dreadful.
Even if we have the money, we won't get you a cent! Bye!"

I hung up the phone and I was pensive. The official publication from
the legal research center of the Ministry of Justice dared to gather money
in such an open manner. The board of directors is in fact a list of
donors. The Ministry of Justice is an organization that receives money
from the state, so that its subsidiary organizations are adequately financed
by taxpayer money. But this magazine is trying to make a profit on its
own, so where is the legitimacy? Besides, this is a purely official
publication without any theoretical depth and readable articles. It
was no honor to be listed in the board of directors. It is amazing
that the magazine could even dream up such a gimmick.

These days, state units are becoming more and more like private enterprises,
while private enterprises are often like official units. This is a
messy situation.

[056] It Was A Magnet
(11/13/2006) (Rednet)
In July 2006, a video clip appeared on the Internet in which an 84-year-old
man from Wuhan showed how to topple bricks with a wave of his hand from
several meters away. He could even move buckets of water from
afar. So was this the legendary qigong?
You can view a video
of a news program in which the 84-year-old does his thing.

So a news reporter contacted a magician and sought his advice. The
magician said that he can do that too, and it is as simple as embedding
magnets in the bricks and the water bucket. The brick trick is a
matter of getting a collaborator to turn on the magnet (which is timed by
the sound that the performer was making as he got ready). The bucket
trick is a matter of setting up a rail underneath the table and guiding the
magnet along the rail.

Based upon this information, the reporter went back and checked the
bucket. Yes, there was a piece of magnet. He then checked the
bottom of the table. Yes, there was another piece of magnet.
When confronted, the old man said: "Those were just performances.
There is not such thing as extraordinary powers in the world!"

Yesterday, I had
lunch with a senior person at Apple Daily. By the way, I asked him
about when the Jimmy Lai interview on the TVB Lifestlye cable channel
program Be My Guest (

《志雲飯局》)would
air. The reply was: "No idea!" Since this was an
opportunity to read the boss's mind beyond his regular column, it was
strange not to remember the broadcast time. Either the person knows
exactly what the boss thinks or else the person intends to utilize alternate
means of viewing such as YouTube.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to locate the Jimmy Lai
interview on through any alternative media. Therein lies the problem:
YouTube is bottom-up through individual contributions and that means not every
television show will show up.

What is so important about this one cable television program with a miniscule
audience rating? It is not the audience size but the legendary statement
into the public record. This is the moment when Jimmy Lai, the chairman
of Next Media, made the statement with respect to Gillian Chung affair.
It does not matter how many people saw the actually show; the relevant number
is the number of media commentators who refer to this historical moment.
And I haven't seen it!!!

[053] French Poetry
(11/12/2006) (NUBB;
Forum
China.com) When Shang Wenjie won this year's Super Girl contest, her Fudan University
professor praised her being among the "top 5" of the best
simultaneous French interpreters in Shanghai. On her blog,
Shang Wenjie published this French poem:

Already the bricks are flying around on the Internet.
How many elementary school grammatical mistakes can be made in such a short poem? If
this is the top five simultaneous interpreter in Shanghai, how does the
French hope to communicate with the Chinese?

[052] Taiwan By The
Numbers (11/12/2006) (ERA
TV) (828 Taipei city voters age 20 or over interviewed on
November 8-10. The sample was drawn initially from the resential
telephone book, and then the last two digits were randomized)

1. Public security/procuratorate/court of law
2. National and local taxation
3. Doctors/teachers
4. Organized criminals

This story is about doctors. (Ming
Pao, Sing
Tao, Boxun,
Boxun)
In the home town of Deng Xiaoping (Guang'an city, Sichuan province), a
4-year-old boy named Xiong Honghui drank a pesticide and was rushed to the
Guang'an City Number Two People's Hospital on November 7. Because the
family did not enough bring money with them (800 RMB for admission), the
hospital refused to pump the stomach of the child until they got the
money. The child died two hours later.

On November 9, the parents played wreaths outside the hospital to
protest. The next day, more citizens joined in to surround the
hospital. Even the students from the nearby middle school came out en
masses. In the evening, the crowd charged into the hospital and
wrecked havoc, destroying medical facilities and equipment. Two
students and one police officer are dead and more than 20 people are
injured. The police arrested more than 20 people. Three police
cars were burned when citizens tossed firecrackers in them.
The Guang'an televised news claimed that the hospital rendered help to the
boy for five hours but was successful. The hospital ended up taking a
reduced fee for which the family was grateful. But on the next day,
the family was incited by unknown persons to bring the body to the hospital
and demand compensation. The hospital believed that it did not do
anything wrong and offered to pay 500 RMB as consolation. The hospital
also suggested litigation. The family found this unacceptable and the
clash began.

(ChineseNewsNet)
An independent investigation by four experts from Sichuan University Huaxi
Medical school, the conclusions were (1) the child Xiong Honghui diagnosed
as having died from poisoning by pesticide 3911; (2) the treatment of the
child at the hospital was timely; (3) the child died because of the severity
and progress of his condition. Furthermore, there does not exist any
"pay first before treatment" or "no money, no treatment"
problems. The hospital brought up the costs only after the child
expired (his dad paid 123 RMB when the actual charge was 639 RMB).

[050] Who Are The
Rats? (11/11/2006) So the ongoing discussion in Taiwan
is a constitutional challenge as to whether prosecutor Eric Chen could
interview President Chen Shui-bian during his investigation. If not,
then maybe the entire investigation is null and void, and it will all be one
big happy family again. No, it does not work that way because there is
something very, very obvious that nobody has pointed out. This is my
personal opinion and so you should not take it as truth.

In American law, there is the theory of the "fruit of the poison
tree." In the event of an illegal search, for example, a court will throw out the evidence that has been
obtained -- if the root of the evidentiary chain has been corrupted, the fruit of the search may not be used.
The question here is whether the prosecutor's case can stand on its own
without the evidence provided by President Chen Shui-bian. If you
don't know the background, please read The National Secret Funds Breakthrough,Mister A, Chen
Shui-bian, Mister A and Mister B and The
Eric Chen Interview.

In the first interview with the prosecutor on August 7, President Chen indicated that a
Mister A was conducting secret diplomatic missions on behalf of
Taiwan. Disclosure of the identity of Mister A could mean that
"people may die." Therefore, President Chen did not say who
Mister A was. The President displayed the prosecutor three payment
vouchers and five sheets that summarized the work. This was a deadend for prosecutor Eric Chen because he
could not proceed any further on the basis of this information.

On August 1, the prosecutor interviewed the Presidential Office's former
bureau chief Tseng Tien-tsu, who said that on three occasions he met with
Mister A in front of the Taipei Number One Girls' School ahd handed a total
of NT$6 million to Mister A. On August 9, the prosecutor interviewed
the First Lady's friend Lee Bi-chun, who said that Mister A had turned over
receipts to her on multiple occasions either near her office or
residence. Both of them provided the
name Kung Kin-yuan for Mister A. Upon investigation, the
prosecutor found out that Kung was out of Taiwan on most of those dates on
which Tseng and Lee made the alleged personal contacts. The prosecutor held
back that information in his hands.

During the second interview (October 27), the President wrote down the name
of Kung Kin-yuan for the prosecutor. This is confirmatory, but it is
immaterial since the prosecutor already knew it. On October 31, the
prosecutor re-interviewed Tseng Tien-tsu and Lee Bi-chun. When
confronted with the fact that Kung was away from Taiwan on those dates when
Tseng and Lee made personal transations with him, both broke down and confessed to perjury and falsifying
documents.

What is strange and unusual about the list? If
you read the prosecutor's description, the two most active persons were
Tseng Tien-tsu and Lee Bi-chun. Those two made up the detailed history of the
contacts with Mister A. Yet their indictments have been
suspended pending good behavior. Wow! What could that
mean? This is so simple -- Tseng and Lee are cooperating witnesses to
the prosecutor's case! Their non-indictment is contingent upon their
testimony at the upcoming trial. How obvious can this get?

If you go through the time sequence, the prosecutor's case does not rely on
the President's statements during those interviews. Hence, the poison
tree theory was not present. You can bet that during the trial, the
prosecutor will ask Tseng and Lee: "So you lied in your initial
testimony to the prosecutor. Who, if anyone, asked you to do that?" That is an obvious
question for which the equally obvious answer has not yet been
provided. What do you think? My bet -- Tseng will say "My
boss told me to make something up" and Lee will say "My good
friend told me to make something up." "So who is your
boss?" and "Who is your good friend?" Good luck with
this trial
... Oh, forget about the embezzlement charge for now -- the perjury
charge carries a five-year jail sentence already.

P.S. Sorry to interject here with more speculations -- the logical
counterattack is to phone the two cooperating witnesses and tell them,
"Oh, your kids are so cute and you wouldn't want anything to happen to
them ..." With due respect, you can bet that the prosecutor has got
those two witnesses placed under 24-hour-a-day maximum surveillance.
So don't even think about it!!!

There
was an earthquake yesterday at the South China Morning Post. Two
Sunday Morning Post senior managers -- chief articles editor Trevor Wilson
and articles editor Paul Ruffini -- were dismissed. Some veteran
workers were unhappy and the word is that they have signed a letter of
petition to the SCMP chairman Kuok Khoon Ean to ask him to render justice
for two good senior managers.

It has
been quite stormy over at SCMP recently. Last month, the Sunday
Morning Post chief editor Niall Fraser resigned, and now it is the turn for
two more colleagues to leave.

I heard
that there was a tradition over at SCMP to present a farewell article on the
front page for any colleagues who are leaving. Usually, the
accompanying article is sarcastic or cute, including cartoon drawings.
This is typical English humor, and it was no exception for Niall
Fraser.

I remembered that
when Willy Lam, the same thing happened and it was a lot of fun. But
this time things went awry. The chief editor Mark Clifford was
incensed that he was not consulted about putting Niall's departure on the
front page. Trevor and Paul were the instigators, but I don't know if
their dismissal was related to this matter. Yesterday Mark sent out an
email to the colleagues to tell them the front page of the newspapers is not
intended for fun and games! The inside story at SCMP is that Mark and
Niall did not get along. I put in a call to SCMP to confirm, but
nobody has called back yet by the deadline.

The Apple Daily article may be misleading about
what actually transpired. Here is the version in Ming
Pao:

[in partial translation]

SCMP has a tradition that whenever a
colleague leaves, they will write a farewell article in the form of news
report and get it printed like a "SCMP" newspaper front page as a
souvenir. Please note that this does not mean that the farewell
article is printed in the mass distribution copy. Only a mock-up of
the front page is printed. This sort of behavior is fairly typical in
the business. Perhaps the 'news report' invoked the name of the new
chief editor, someone was enraged, went through an internal investigation
and dismissed the two 'authors' immediately. Yesterday Mark Clifford
sent out an email to SCMP employes to hint that the actions of certain
colleagues affect the image of SCMP negatively and must not be tolerated.
Yesterday, Ming Pao attempted to confirm the affair with Mark Clifford, but
the SCMP spokesperson responded that there will be no comment about whether
employees were dismissed for violating the business code of conduct.

[048] Meng's
Fans (11/11/2006) There is another type of Internet swarm
pursuant to Meng Guangmei and Toiletgate: The latest Chinese Internet swarm (
Jeremy Goldkorn, Danwei). Previously, Meng Guangmei had been the target
of Chinese "patriots" on account of her statements about
uncivilized behavior on mainland China (see video).
On such Internet battles, there will be "angry-young-people" on
one side and then there will be "anti-angry-young-people" on the
outside. It is very easy to imagine that some of these people may be
hired help. In this case, people may have been hired to attack or
defend Meng Guangmei. Since hired help do not identify themselves as
such, we usually don't know who's what. But now comes an open letter
from some hired help (via yWeekend):

[in translation]

I
want to tell you about an ugly scandal that I was personally part of.

We
are university students. In early September, a friend introduced to
Lin Xiuhua. He is the boss of the Xiamen Fengmingchaoyang Performance
Cultural Corporation. Through him, we met Nan Lan, who is an assistant
agent at the Zhongqianlungde Cultural Corporation in Beijing. She said
that she was on business in Xiamen and then she got into the main
subject. Our friend had told us about the Meng Guangmei affair so we
knew what this was about. The main thing was about the
compensation. There were six of us, and we agreed upon 400 RMB per
month. The money will come from Lin Xiuhua to us. Frankly
speaking, this money represents a considerable sum to students. So the
six of us registered ourselves with certain Internet ID's.

During
this meeting, we found out that she also hired many hackers to delete the
"Red Storm" video clips. For those websites that deletion
could not be made, she contacted the website operators and paid money to
have the complete videos replaced by other videos with the insulting parts
deleted. So this will allow Meng Guangmei to go through her
positioning of "she only spoke the truth."

At
the time, we published many posts in support of mgm. But a large
proportion were deleted by the Baidu administrators. Two of the ID's
were even blocked. Since Zhongqianlongde did not see those posts, they
said that we did not work hard. In the end, the two people whose ID's
were blocked received only 200 RMB, two others got 260 RMB and I and another
person got 300 RMB. This was far less than the 400 RMB that we agreed
upon. Together, we came up more than 1,000 RMB short.

As
for the Xiamen Fengminchaoyang people, they said that this was what they
were given. So we were mad, because we only earned so little for work
that was against our conscience.

I
don't know how many groups like us are out there. I don't believe that
this exists only in Xiamen. There must be many more in Wuhan,
Shanghai, Tianjin. Some are over at the Tianya forum, and others at
Baidu.

We know that we did wrong.
I hope you will forgive us. Even while we were publishing posts in
support of Meng Guangmei, we were also publishing other posts condemning
her. In our hearts, we are just like others. Please forgive
us. Thanks.

When Nan Lan was contacted by the Youth Weekend
reporter, she laughed and said: "I heard about this from a kid at the
company. I have never heard of this Fengmingchaoyang company in
Xiamen. This whole thing is too hilarious. We are busy with
promoting two other artistes. If I knew how to hire people on the
Internet to do this kind of stuff, I would have made those two quite popular
by now. We are busy worrying about how to promote them. I asked
Meng Guangmei if she has offended anyone here on the mainland. She said,
'I don't know. I doubt it.'"

[047] A
Police Car in Guangzhou (11/11/2006) (Xinhua Forum via Wenxue
City) August 27, 2006. Maidi Road South, Huizhou,
Guangzhou. A police car passed by in front of a netizen's car.
The netizen's car happened to be right behind the police car at this
intersection.
Yes, but so what? You are going to have to take a closer look at the license
plate. Oh, you can't see it because it is wrapped up with a piece of
newspaper! Gee, if the police should see a car like this, they would
stop it for sure. Oh, wait, this is a police car ...
Where did the car go? It ended up at a restaurant whereupon one police
officer and two women in civilian clothes came out of the car and went in.

[046] The
Blogger Who Committed Suicide (11/11/2006) (Apple
Daily) On this day, the front page story on Apple Daily was
the suicide of a 22-year-old Hong Kong Univeristy of Science and Technology graduate and Hutchison
Global Communications trainee account executive. The person known as
Felix jumped down 22 flights from the roof of his apartment building.
What is the news value in the story that propelled it to the front
page? One, he had a good education and he should have a bright
future. Two, he was under job pressure to produce more sales at
work. Three, he just quit his job three days ago. He attempted
suicide three days ago from the same spot, but was persuaded to come
down. None of these factors may be enough for the front page.

(Apple
Daily) The clincher was that Felix kept a personal blog.
This allows a voyeuristic peek into his state of mind. Actually, the
blog was uninformative because it was not totally apparent from the
published contents that he was suicidal.

Example: "On the day before yesteday, I suddenly felt the pressure at
work. I was down. I was a bit depressed. But then I
chatted with Haiyan and Tony and then I felt a lot better. I had
dinner with Clic's friends. We all have jobs so we talked about our
work. We went to eat at a cafe. The food came slowly ... they
even took a long time to settle the bill. Maybe they don't need the
income? But I was happy to see so many friends. I felt
good! Today, I went with Joey to meet clients. Both companies
are listed on the stock market. I went to Kwon Tong to meet the first
client; then I had tea with another client in Kowloon Bay; in the afternoon,
I met the last client in Tsimshatsui. I finally saw a
Blackberry. After meeting all the clients, I bought clothes in
Tsimshatsui. It was fun trying on clothes."

高璐) was
a television program hostess on Nancheng TV. Earlier this year, she
was the runner-up in the Jiangxi regional Miss International pageant.
All that would only make Gao Lu a local celebrity. But now Gao Lu in
the national limelight.
What did she do to gain the fame? In April, Gao Lu with the assistance
of three men kidnapped a man named Chen. Supposedly, Chen owed Gao
money. The f four forced Chen to write IOU's of 170,000 RMB and 30,000
RMB respectively. After a few rounds of beating, Chen agreed to
withdraw 41,900 RMB from various banks. After Chen was released, he
called the police. Gao has been charged with illegal detention.

[044] Television
Patrol Squad (11/10/2006) (Sing
Tao) Several hundred directors and producers from television
stations around China are gathered in Chengdu (Sichuan) to attend a work
conference about how to eliminate vulgarities from television. The
event is organized by the State Administration of Radio, Films and
Television.

The target hereare the entertainment and talk shows as well as narrative
documentaries. Presently, the local documentaries are a blend of
social news and televised drama with the participation of local citizens as
actors. Recently, for the sake of getting higher ratings, the
television stations will bring up sensationalistic topics such as sex,
adultery, eroticism, violence, and so on.

A SARFT official confirmed that during the work conference, teams of
undercover investigators have been sent out all over China. These
teams do not contact any local counterparts. When they arrive, their
job is to stay inside their hotel rooms and watch the local programs.
If they find any irregular programming, they will take a heavy-handed
approach to rectify.

What kind of job is this to sit in a hotel room and watch television all
day? Well, actually, this happens in the United States. A friend
of mine used to work at an advertising agency and her job was to watch
daytime television to make sure that the programs were family-friendly.
If she marked a program as unsuitable, the advertising agency will withdraw
all advertising. Oh, yes, since tens of millions of dollars were
involved, that job was ripe for corruption. My friend got lots of
party invitations (which her boss did not get), and pay up for the
sub-minimum-wages that she was making. When she 'banned' a
program, a producer may file a petition with her boss against her.

聞.見.思.錄)
The bite here is a "sound bite." A good sound bite is worth
ten times more than what a reporter can possibly say. At the WHO press
conference by newly appointed WHO director-general Margaret Chan, a female
reporter began her question by saying: "I'm a reporter from Hong
Kong. Actually, the question that I want to ask is similar to the one
that was previously asked in English about the reluctance of China to share
its infectious disease virus samples. How will you deal with
it?" The reporter posed the question in Cantonese and she wanted
Mrs. Chan to answer in Cantonese. The press conference host reminded
the reporter to repeat the question in English . The reporter did so, but
she still insisted on an answer in Cantonese.

At this point, the press conference host attempted to "prevent"
the reporter from doing so by pointing out that the official languages are
English and French. But the reporter insisted on an answer in
Cantonese. So Mrs. Chan said that she will make an exception.
But before she could do so, the other reporters started to complain.
So Mrs. Chan changed her mind. She said that although the reporter
from Hong Kong is "her friend," she must treat everyone equally
and not offer any "special treatment."

The blogger Alex (who is a media worker) wrote: "I understand that this
was an effort to get a Cantonese sound-bite from Mrs. Chan to the Hong Kong
reporter, so that the television/radio broadcast would not be all in boring
English. If necessary, this can always be done after the press
conference. But to insist in an international setting that all the
others oblige you is -- frankly speaking -- quite embarrassing."

[042] The
Official AIDS Survey (11/10/2006) (Southern
Weekend) This an 'official' survey in the sense that it was
administered to about 3,000 Chinese Communist Party cadres being trained at
the Communist Party Schools. These cadres work at the city and county
levels, and all of them are university graduates.

Here are some highlights:
- Fewer than 40% know that an AIDS vaccine does not exist yet
- 30% believe that AIDS patients should be segregated from the general
healthy population
- if a subordinate is infected by AIDS, 50% will "keep the information
confidential and permit the subordinate to continue working"; the rest
chose "fire the subordinate," "publicize the condition"
or "don't know what to do."
- with respect to their personal AIDS prevention behavior, 70% "will
have sexual intercourse with only one partner," 50% "will avoid
extramarital relations as much as possible," 30% "will use a
condom during sexual intercourse."

According to Chengdu Business News, the Sichuan provincial Communist Party
School held AIDS training classes and conducted a "press
conference." At the press conference, an "American
reporter" raised a question that shook up all the attendees:
"Since your city claimed to have no cases of AIDS, then how come the
rumor in society is that your mayor has been infected with AIDS
..." Oh, this was only a simulation exercise in which a deputy
county party secretary pretended that he was an American reporter. The
point of the exercise was to challenge the cadres about how to respond
publicly when their claims are challenged.

[041] The
Election of Margaret Chan (11/09/2006) (SCMP) Hong
Kong's former director of health Margaret Chan Fung Fu-chun made history
yesterday when she was nominated World Health Organisation director-general
in a resounding victory that saw her lead all the way in four rounds of
voting. Proposed by China, which provided strong support throughout
her campaign, Dr Chan picked up 24 votes in the last round, against 10 for
Mexico's Julio Frenk, two days after emerging at the top of a shortlist of
five. Dr Chan's nomination was supported by the US, it was revealed
yesterday. Kuwait's Kazem Behbehani, Spain's Elena Salgado and Japan's
Shigeru Omi were eliminated in earlier rounds.

Did the US really support Chan? Well,
that depends on which newspaper you read. For illustration, here are two
different accounts (and they are different) about the 'secret' balloting.

(Apple
Daily) In the first round, it was China 10, Japan 9, Mexico 6,
Spain 5, Kuwait 4. So Kuwait dropped out. Of the four Middle East
votes that supported Kuwait, 3 went to Mexico and 1 to China. Another
vote for Spain now went to China.

In the second round, it was China 11, Mexico 10, Japan 9 and Spain 4. So
Spain dropped out. All European votes for Spain then went to China and
this proved critical.

In the third round, it was China 15, Mexico 10 and Japan 9. So Japan
dropped out. All the 9 Asian votes and 7 African votes went to China.

In the fourth and last round, it was China 24 and Mexico 10. China
won. The Europeans played a key role. Mexico's principal support
came from Latin America and the Middle East. The reason why the
Europeans went for China was that they felt competitive against Mexico's
supporter -- the United States.

(Ming
Pao) In the first round, China got 10 votes. One rumor was
that these 10 votes consist of China's own vote plus 9 African votes because
China had just forgiven debts totaling US$10 billion to a number of African
countries. That is incorrect, because the African countries had informed
China that they were committed to Japan. So China got those votes from
the Asian countries such as Thailand.

In the second round, China got Bahrain's vote. In the third round,
Spain's supporters had to chose among China, Mexico and the US-backed
Japan. The Europeans did not want to support US-Japan and Mexico, so
China held on to the lead into the next round.

In the fourth and last round, the direction of the 9 votes for Japan was
critical. Mexico would win with those 9 votes. At this juncture,
the 9 US-Japan votes went to China. China 24, Mexico 10. China
wins.

[040]
Sharp Daily (11/09/2006) (Sharp
Daily) Sharp Daily is the sister newspaper of Apple Daily and
it is distributed free in Taipei. It is considered lighter fare and
designed to reach young adults who are sick of 'color'-politics. But
that does not mean that it is free of politics. But this is the extent
of the analysis:

The President's son-in-law Chao Chien-ming and four others
are standing on trial for alleged insider trader in the case of the Taiwan
Tradiing Corporation. Arguments were heard yesterdat at the district
court in Taipei. Chao Chien-ming was chewing gum in the courtroom and
the chief judge ordered: "There is no eating in the
courtroom." So Chao quickly spit out the gum into his hand.

When Chao Chien-ming was bailed out, his "45 degree head tilt" was
criticized as a sign of an arrogant attitude. Previously, he was
shaking his leg in court and that was criticized as contempt of court.
Then yesterday he was pointed out for chewing gum.

[039]
Xaná (11/09/2006) (Youth Reference via Wenxue
City) At the 24th Annual International Car Show in São Paulo,
Brazil, all the major auto manufacturers were present to exhibit their
products. For the first time, there were Chinese autos there.
The representative was Chongqing's Chang'an company which showed its brand
Chana. This immediately became the talk of all of Brazil.
Why? Because "Chana" sounds like "Xaná" in
Brazilian Portuguese, and Xaná is a term for the female vulva.

Companies which plan to go international ought to check out the possible
local meanings of their brand names. A well-known example was General
Motor's popular Nova car in the United States. In Spanish
"Nova" is parsed into "No va" which says that it
does not run.

Okay, so what is the list of synonyms for "vulva" in Brazilian
Portuguese? Well, you asked for it (via Brazzil):

[038]
Ticketing Hell (11/09/2006) Hell in China usually
refers to traveling by train during the Chinese New Year. This is
known as the largest migration of humanity in the history of the world as
100 million plus people try to go places.
(MOP)
This may be a shock to foreign visitors. However, there is truth in
advertising as shown in this sign at a Dongguan long-distance bus(?)
depot. So maybe they meant to say "Ticketing Hall" but
subconsciously they might recognize that "Ticketing Hell" is more
suitable.

[037]
How To Over-Interpret (11/09/2006) (Next Weekly)
The problem with getting the flow of history is that things happen every
day. Most of these things are not earth-shaking by themselves, but
collectively they may represent a huge sea change. So how do you find
the anchor points at which such changes can be identified in Hong
Kong? On this day, the exercise concerns the lists for funeral
committee membership. Six years ago, Chinese People's Political
Consultative Committee Vice-chairman An Zijie (

安子介)
passed away. Recently, Chinese People's Political Consultative
Committee Vice-chairman Henry Fok passed away. As is traditional,
there were funeral committees named in which the lists can be interpreted as
the landscape of political power, because it is assumed the Chinese
government dictates the composition of these funeral committees. So
who is in and who is out, then and now?

First of all, there is the realm of political parties. When An Zijie
passed away, Liberal Party chairman James Tien and DAB party chairman Jasper
Tsang were on the funeral committee. When Henry Fok passed away, no
political party member made the funeral committee. Are the influence
of political party waning in the eyes of the central government?

Second, there is the realm of universities in Hong Kong. When An Zijie
passed away, the chancellors of Hong Kong University and the Chinese
University of Hong Kong were on the funeral committee. When Henry Fok
passed away, only the Baptist University chancellor made the funeral
committee. This man is a Hong Kong People's Congress
representative. But the chancellors at the Hong Kong Polytechnic
University and the City University of Hong Kong are members of the Chinese
People's Political Consultative Committee and they were not invited.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong University and Chinese University of Hong Kong are down
and out.

As I wrote in the title, this may be over-interpreting, but the Chinese are
good at reading signs (for example, from rice 問米).

Aside: By the way, An Zijie lived in my apartment building in Hong
Kong. I know very little about him as I had been away for many
decades, but the hints around my apartment show a completely different human
building than one might imagine from the public record. From the
public record, An Zijie might be described a patriotic Chinese business
leader. Yet in my apartment, I find gifts of books by An Zijie to my
father on poetry, calligraphy and painting. I cannot judge the
literary quality of those works, but I suppose that he is a more refined
person than certain politicians who cannot even improvise on anything
without tripping all over themselves.

[036] There
Is No Silver Buried At This Spot (11/08/2006) (Southern
Metropolis Daily) A classical Chinese story is about the man
who buried 300 taels of silver at a spot; then he got worried and so he
posted a sign: "There is no 300 taels of silver buried at this spot (

此地无银三百两)."
Of course, someone else read the sign and robbed the silver.

A more complicated version of the story is this: Ever since finding 300
taels of silver under the first sign, Wang Er began to dig up other people's
yards to everybody's annoyance. First, someone put up a sign that said
"There is silver at this spot" but it did not deter. Next
someone put up a sign that said "There is no silver at this spot"
but it did not deter.

A thoroughly modern version of this story is that a foreign tourist went
around Guangzhou carrying a backpack with a note in Chinese 此包内没钱
(in translation: There is no money inside this bag) displayed prominently. Yes, he completed
his trip without being ripped off.

Now that was an accident, because this is game theory. If "There
is no money inside this bag" always works, then other signs such as
"This bag is not made of real leather," "this neck chain is
only painted gold," "this is not a notebook computer bag; it is
only for documents," "this MP3 player can only store a dozen
songs" and so on will also be effective.

For thieves, if these notices were true, it would decrease the cost of
operations because they don't have to snatch worthless items. But
citizens will learn to be free riders and soon everything will be affixed
with these notes. So the thieves end up ignoring them. Back to
square one.

As for the foreign tourist, he was still carrying the note when he boarded
the airplane. In fact, the airport workers taught him about the story
of the 300 taels of silver.

So far, there does not seem to be any Internet manhunt for a foreign tourist
who hurt the feelings of the Chinese people by walking around with that
sign.

[035] This
Diamond Ring (11/08/2006) (United
Daily News; United
Daily News) In the matter of the state secret fund, a diamond
ring played a key role in the decision of the prosecutor Eric Chen.
The diamond ring was purchased by the First Lady Wu Shu-chen on June 13,
2005 at the Tiffany store in Chongshan, Taipei and cost NT$1,327,500.
The ring size was custom-fitted for the First Lady. The receipt was
submitted and then Wu was reimbursed.

On the first interview with the President, the prosecutor Eric Chen asked:
"Did members of the First Family used any state secret funds to
purchase clothing or jewelry for themselves?" The president said:
"No. If something was purchased, then it was used as a
gift. The members of the First Family will not use the funds on
themselves."

On the interview with Wu Shu-chen, the prosecutor asked: "Has President
Chen Shui-bian ever used state secret funds to purchase jewelry and clothing
for you?" She replied: "No."

On the second interview, Eric Chen asked the President: "In the
receipts submitted to seek reimbursement from the state secret funds, there
were some receipts for the First Lady's purchase of diamond ring, clothes,
sunglasses, shoes and so on. How do explain that?" The
President said: "There are two situations. The first situation is
that my wife bought them for herself, and these would be gifts from me to
her. That should be a relatively small amount. The other
situation is that my wife bought them as gifts for foreign guests, or for
occasions such as weddings or funerals."

(China
Times; China
Times) This led to the crazy events yesterday about that
diamond ring. Once the diamond ring was considered a gift from the
President to his wife, then a follow-up question was why was it not declared
as part of the First Family's assets, as required by law? In the
morning yesterday, the President's Office made the statement that Wu
Shu-chen gave the ring to her mother. As such, it was not part of the
First Family's assets and that was why there was no declaration.

Yesterday, Accounting and Statistics Director-General Hsu Jan-yau faced the
Legislature during the day on this subject. There is some unintentional
hilarity in the evasive responses:

Q: Can you use state secret funds to buy a diamond ring for your wife?
A: There are no diamond rings in my home.
Q: Can you use state secret funds to buy a refrigerator for your wife?
A: We buy our own refrigerators.
Q: What about scarves?
A: I don't think my wife uses scarves.
Q: What about clothes?
A: Not allowed (to use state secret funds)
Q: Can you use state secret funds to buy clothing for your mother-in-law?
A: My mother-in-law has passed away.
Q: What should state funds be used for?
A: For state matters.
Q: Therefore buying a diamond ring for Wu Shu-chen or her mother should not
be allowed, because what has that got to do with state matters? Is my
deduction correct?
A: I can agree.
Q: Is buying a diamond ring for your wife a state matter?
A: It should not be.
Q: Can you use state funds to buy a present for your mother-in-law?
A: I don't think that it is allowed.

So there you have it -- it was wrong for the President to use state secret
funds to buy a diamond ring for his mother-in-law. So now the morning
statement from the President's Office is a legal liability. Late in the evening, the President's Office sent out a SMS to the media to
say that the earlier statement about the diamond ring being a gift the First
Lady's mother was "in the process of being verified."

Postscript: The President's Office has decided that since the matter
is now in the legal process, no further comments will be made. That
may be the right thing to do after the huge explosion in the mainstream
media and especially at the Internet forums.

(Apple
Daily) Chronology: The Changing Story of The Diamond RingAugust 7: Bian was interviewed by Eric Chen and denied that the First
Family used state secret fund to buy clothes and jewelryOctober 27: Bian was re-interviewed by Eric Chen and admitted that Wu
used Tiffany receipt to get reimbused from state secret fund, which was a
gift from Bian to WuNovember 7 (11:00) Presidential Office said that NT$1.32 million
diamond ring was paid for by the President himself and he obtained the
receipt. Then the diamond was given to Wu's mother as a presentNovember 7 (12:30) Presidential Office Public Affairs Officer
director David Lee repeated that no state secret fund went into private
pockets; everything was spend on secret diplomatic missions and public
matters.November 7 (15:00) David Lee said that Wu represented Taiwan to
attend the conference of the league of free political parties in Europe and
the ring was purchased for her. When she came back, it was given to
her mother.November 7 (17:00) The media pointed out the conference took place in
2001 whereas the receipt was dated September 2005. David Lee was at
a loss for words and promised to investigateNovember 7 (18:00) David Lee replied that the story of the
diamond ring has reverted to the one in the morning -- the President bought it
to give to his mother-in-law.November 7 (22:55) The Presidential Office issued a SMS to the
media to say that "the disposition of the diamond ring needs to be
verified."November 8 (11:20) Presidential Office deputy Secretary-General
Liu Shih-fang said that the matter is in the legal
process and there no further comments will be made.

我們不是律師，也不是法官，任何發言都會影響未來的判決方向
("We are not lawyers or judges. Anything that we say may affect
the direction of the eventual direction")

[034] Three
Generations (11/08/2006) In her Hong Kong University talk,
Lung Ying-tai spoke about her typical strategy when she meets a Hong Kong
person. She would ask: Tell me about the three generations of your
ancestors (your father, grandfather and great-grandfather). Thus, she
found out interesting historical details about Hong Kong history, as when
someone's ancestor was a Shandong policeman recruited in the 1920's because
he was tall, strong and handsome. Indeed, there was an entire Shandong
police squadron which kept watch in the Victoria Peak area of Hong Kong.

Lung Ying-tai said that she attempted to explain the attitude of Hong Kong
people towards Chen Shui-bian and Taiwan independence. That attitude
is almost universally abhorrence (as indicated by the Hong Kong University
Public Opinion Programme's polls). She used this illustration: In
Taiwan, about 13% of the population came originally from mainland China and
they resent being ostracized by Chen Shui-bian and the people in the Taiwan
independence movement. In Hong Kong, you should imagine that almost
everybody came from mainland China (and there is no such thing as a truly
indigenous Hong Kong person). So how could they possibly like Chen Shui-bian?

,
Part 3, The Shanghainese in Hong Kong
and (in Chinese) 天外有天:宋以朗
and 宋以朗家庭的故事).
Or so it seems. When I was interviewed by RTHK's eWorld program (The eWorld Interview
in Cantonese), an off-the-air question from the host was: "I read the Next
Weekly article and I want to know -- is everything in there true?
This is because there were so many different things and people in
there." My answer was: "Everything in there was true,
although there are some minor errors in the details. That interview
went on for seven hours over two sessions. After four hours in the
first session, the reporter called for a stop because of information
overload. She took some time to review her notes and came back for
three more hours." But even that did not cover all of the
interesting things. For example, who was my godfather? And who
was my girlfriend? These may be much bigger stories than what has
appeared so far. Generally, I will answer all question. But if
you don't ask me directly and specifically, I won't volunteer the
information. In that sense, I am not sure asking superficially about
the three generations is really illuminating.

[033] Lung
Ying-tai's My Hong Kong Notebook (11/07/2006) On this evening,
Lung Ying-tai gave a speech to a standing-room-only crowd at the Hong Kong
University library. The occasion was the introduction of her
collection of essays about Hong Kong, titled My Hong Kong Notebook.
I was there. The event was divided into three parts. The first
part consists of an 8-minute video that was prepared by RTHK for broadcast
sometime next year, so that this excerpt was a preview. My review:
"very high production value." The second part consists of
readings from Lung Ying-tai's actual working notebook (which is not the same
as the polished essays in the new book). The contents include her
notes on all the strange and unusual things that she came across during her
stay in Hong Kong (for example, where did the name Rednaxela Terrace come
from? (answer: somebody transcribed the name Alexander from right to
left!)). She has the habit of observing these matters and then racing
off to research them.

The third part was interactive with the moderator and the audience.
There was a lot of discussion about identification (with Taiwan, Hong Kong,
mainland China, Macau, 'Nanyang', etc). To my mind, those distinctions
are just word games, for I personally will answer "I am a citizen of
the world" to those kinds of questions. When asked why she was
interested in Hong Kong, she said simply that her world is the
Chinese-language world. When she decided to leave her job in Taipei in
2003, she chose to come to Hong Kong University because it was
unconscionable for someone whose interest is in the Chinese-language world
not know Hong Kong. So she came here and she kept her notebooks
about all the strange and unusual things that was Hong Kong -- this was an
integral part of the Chinese-language world and yet so unlike Taiwan or
mainland China. By the way, she promises that she will try to learn
Cantonese.

This meeting was focused on Hong Kong and the theme of culture.
Therefore, there would only be just a few side jokes about Freezing Point,
Chen Shui-bian and other politically sensitive matters. When asked
where she could chose to stay for the rest of her life, she said, "Oh,
I would like to live in Beijing or Shanghai for a year, but I cannot stay
there too long because the country is a dictatorial state. I could
stay in Vancouver (British Columbia), because it is often rated as the
best in the world in terms of living conditions. However, that would
be impossible for someone who wants to engage with her environment and the
whole Chinese-language world -- it would be so wrong! That leaves Hong
Kong and Taipei. If I have to choose, I guess it will be Taipei.
After all, Chen Shui-bian cannot be around forever, eh?" That
comment drew the loudest applause of the evening.

That leads to this news report in ETToday.
(in translation) "Although this event was the publication of a new book
and the talk was supposed to be about culture and not politics, Lung
Ying-tai can see the situation in Taiwan and she could not help opening fire
from Hong Kong. She said that Taiwan democracy was doing nicely until
President Chen ruined everything. She said that the Taiwan people
managed to transition from the authoritarian era to the democratic era, like
changing from a tank to a new car with an open hood. Unfortunately, they elected Chen Shui-bian who drove the car straight into a
wall. Lung Ying-tai determined that Peking has nothing against the
democratic system in Taiwan, so the waves of anti-Bian activates does not
frighten them. She even thinks that the democratically lagging Hong
Kong can learn from the democratic system in Taiwan. Lung Ying-tai
said that Chen Shui-bian is a negative educational example and the people of
Hong Kong can study it carefully and derive lessons and meaning.
Whereas Lung Ying-tai used to express her discontent with words, it was rare
that she launches an attack from the frontline. This shows how
disappointed she is with politics in Taiwan."

With due respect, this report has nothing to do with the event that I
attended on this evening. I swear that I heard nothing of the sort.

[032] How
Does A PR Company Handle Its Own PR? (11/07/2006) In the
televised speech of President Chen Shui-bian ( (

扁：一審判有罪 我就下台！),
he said: "2004連任後，公關公司說如果不簽約，對岸搶要跟他簽約，我就決定繼續簽兩年約"
(translation: "After I was re-elected in 2004, the public relations
company said that if their contract was not renewed, then the other side of
the strait will sign them up. So I decided to renew the contract for
two years"). Everybody knows that the public relations company is
Cassidy & Associates, and this is really bad public relations for the
company to be leaning on its client and threatening to switch to the other
side while possibly disclosing proprietary information. So what will
the company do?

(United Daily
News) In response to media inquiries, Cassidy & Associates
corporate liaison director Tom Alexander wrote: "The President's
information is in error. Cassidy & Associates has never threatened
to share client information with others in the past and we never
will." Furthermore, Cassidy & Associates holds strict ethical
policies and will protect all client information with the strictest
confidentiality. Cassidy & Associates maintains the highest
professional ethics and any doubts about this promise is "obviously
wrong."

[031] Taiwan
By The Numbers (11/07/2006) (China
Times) (707 adults interviewed on the evening of November 6
after President Chen Shui-bian delivered his televised address. A
random sample was drawn from the Taiwan residential telephone directory, and
then the last two digits of the selected numbers were randomized)

Q1. Do you believe that the President's family was involved in
embezzlement/corruption?Yes 52%; No 14%.

Q2. Do you believe that the prosecutor Eric Chen handled the case fairly?Yes 51%; No 13%.

Q3. Do you believe that President Chen should resign immediately or wait
until after the trial?Immediately 46%; after the trial 34%

Q4. Should President Chen go on leave while awaiting trial?Yes 44%; No 34%

Q5. Overall, how would you rate the President's job performance?Satisfactory 23%; unsatisfactory 45%

(United Daily
News) (900 adults interviewed on the evening of November 6,
with 279 refusals. A random sample was drawn from the Taiwan
residential telephone directory, and then the last two digits of the
selected numbers were randomized.)

Q2. Did President Chen tell the truth in his "report to the
people"?Yes 13%; No 55%; no opinion 31%

Q3. Do you believe President Chen's assertion that "NT$14.8 million
went to secret diplomatic missions and not into personal pocket"?Yes 17%; No 63%; no opinion 19%

Q4. Can you accept that President Chen lied in order to protect
diplomatic secrets?Yes 21%; No 60%; no opinion 17%

Q5. Should President Chen quit?Immediately 48%; only if found guilty found after first trial 27%; no
11%; no opinion 13%

Q6. Why did President Chen offer "resignation if found guilty after
first trial"?Respect for law 27%; delay resignation 55%; no opinion 16%

Q7. Do you support the opposition proposing recall?Yes 48%; No 33%; no opinion 18%

Q8. Should the Democratic Progressive Party "abandon Bian and save
the party"?Yes 54%; No 21%; no opinion 24%

(TVBS)
(957 persons interviewed on the evening of November 6, 2006. A random sample was drawn from the Taiwan
residential telephone directory, and then the last four digits of the
selected numbers were randomized.)

Q2. Did you watch President Chen's televised press conference on the state
affairs fund?Yes 61%; No 39%

Q3. Overall, were you satisfied with President Chen's speech? (base:
those watched it on TV)Satisfied 20%; dissatisfied 71%; no opinion 10%

Q4. Did you think that President Chen explained the state affairs fund
clearly?Yes 14%; No 77%; no opinion 10%

Q5. Overall, do you think President Chen's speech?Yes 59%; No 20%; no opinion 20%

Q6. President Chen said that he did not embezzle money and that he
will be proven right in history. Do you believe that he is clear?Yes 18%; No 63%; no opinion 19%

[030] Taiwan
By The Numbers (11/06/2006) (TVBS)
(919 persons age 20 or over interviewed on the evening of November 3 after
the announcement of the indictment of the First Lady Wu Shu-chen. A
random sample was drawn from the Taiwan residential telephone directory, and
then the last four digits of the selected numbers were randomized)

Q1. Do you believe that President Chen Shui-bian should quit?Yes 62%; No 15%; No opinion 23%

Q2. Concerning whether President Chen Shui-bian should quit or not, what
is the best option in your opinion?(1) President Chen should resign on his own: 52%
(2) The Democratic Progressive Party should support a recall motion at the
Legislature: 13%
(3) The "Red Army" should go into the streets to bring down Bian:
1%
(4) President Chen should complete his term: 21%
(5) No opinion: 13%

"If
I post on the Internet to ask people to lay siege to the Legislative Council
on July 1st and someone informs the police, will the police come and arrest
me?" The blogger at Atheist's Babel Lau Ching pointed out that
whereas Internet speech never used to run into the law, nowadays one can
step on landmines anytime. "If you write something on the
Internet, then it is evidence in black-and-white. The citizens must be
very careful about what they write on the Internet."

... A small number of mischief makers have
caused popular blogger Benjamin Ng Wai-ming to be pensive. Ng's blog

知 日 部 屋 has more than 5,000 visitors per day. He believes that
Internet speech should be monitored by the blogger and government interference
is uncalled for. Concerning the police reaction about Internet speech, he
said: "I am displeased. I feel that the entire Internet culture on
discourse is being smeared!"

Benjamin Ng is an associate professor of the
Department of Japanese Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong
[blogger's note: actually, he is a full professor], where he teaches
"Introduction to Popular Culture in Japan." His blog
advocates "It is better to know Japan than just to adore or hate
it" (

哈 日 反 日 不 如 知 日).
Since much of this blog carries positive introductions to Japanese culture,
he has often been denounced by anti-Japanese netizens and he has even been
threatened with "Kill your entire family!" He said that he
thought about calling the police but in the end he only deleted that comment
and the information about his family on the blog. "I don't want
to resort to the law, because freedom of speech on the Internet is so
precious."

"The Internet has its own culture, and
the government should stay out it." Benjamin Ng used the
publishing copyrights as example. He criticized the government for
leaning towards protecting those who own the copyrights and therefore
ignoring the fact it was the commonly shared culture that enabled the
Internet to grow so rapidly. He stressed: "If there should come a
time that when a blog is sued for copyright infringement every time that it
uses an image or music piece, then I shall close down my blog."

To appreciate the last sentence, you only have
to glance through Ng's blog, which uses images extensively. It is
impossible to discuss Japanese culture with pure text.

[028] Why
Did You Apologize? (11/06/2006) (Southern
Metropolis Daily) By Wang Shichuan. At the end of a
television show on November 3, Taiwan artiste Meng Guangmei took a deep bow
and apologized. What were her crimes?

1. She laughed at mainlanders for not closing
the restroom doors
2. She disclosed that she "basically gets paid nothing" when she
hosts programs on CCTV
3. She said "The Nanjing massacre was a historical incident" and
"The Sino-Japanese love-hate relationship will never be resolved"

The commentator wonders if there are
"crimes":

1. Anyone who has been to rural villages or
even small county cities know that not only do people not close their
restroom doors, but most of the time there are no doors to close
2. Why hasn't CCTV told us about the fortunes that they pay their program
hosts? That should make it clear that Meng was lying!
3. Meng did not deny the importance of the Nanjing massacre. She only
pointed out the fact that the Nanjing massacre is a deep scar that will
always stand between China and Japan.

Such
being the case, then why did tens of thousands of Chinese netizens feel
scorned, insulted and slighted? Simply put, this is the sub-conscious
Ah Q spirit. When Bai Yang's The Ugly Chinese first appeared, people
were shocked and depressed, but even more people were hopping back.
More than 20 years later, the criticisms by Bai Yang about the
"filthiness," "disorderliness" and "noisiness"
of the Chinese people are still valid.

Regrettably,
Meng Guangmei retreated this time. The basic significance of this
storm is the question: Can we tolerate the "honest words" from an
artiste? Do we provide enough space for an artiste to say "honest
words"?

[027] No
Banging Today (11/06/2006) (Apple
Daily) The following photograph was taken by netizen 'rcc00073'
at a HSBC branch in Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong.

[026] Taiwan
By The Numbers (11/06/2006) (China
Times) (706 adults interviewed on the evening of November
5. An initial sample of telephone numbers were randomly drawn from the
Taipei city telephone directory and then the last two digits of the
telephone numbers were randomized) At issue is the Taipei city mayoral
election, and this poll measures the effect of the indictment of the
President's wife Wu Shu-chen.

In May, Hau Lung-bin (KMT) had 54% support. In mid-June, it became
39%. In mid-October, it dropped to a low of 36%. In late
October, it came back up to 42%. On November 5, Hau has 47% support.

In May, Frank Hsieh (DPP) had 11%. In mid-June, it became 18%.
In late October, it increased to 20%. On November 5, Hsieh has 18%.

James Soong (IND) has 8% support on November 5. It has not
significantly changed over the course of time. Similarly, Li Ao (IND)
is stuck at around 3% while Clara Chou (TSU) is stuck as around 2%.

[025] Follow
The Money (11/06/2006) Once upon a time, in a parking garage
in Washington DC, the source known as "Deep Source" told
Washington Post reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodard to "follow the
money." Overseas Chinese dissident Wang
Xizhe is asking the same question.

Wang's issue is with the indictment against President Chen Shui-bian's wife
Wu Shu-chen. There were six cases offered in which the state secret
funds were used. Of these, the prosecutor Eric Chen determined two to
be authentic, one to be "purely fictional" (namely, the case of
Mister A) and three others not to be pertinent to the matter at all.
Of the two authentic cases, one was for the American public relations
company which threatened to go to work for the Chinese Communists unless
their terms were met. The other authentic case was US$200,000 paid to
overseas Chinese democratic movements.

This got Wang Xizhi riled up. He wants to know which overseas
democratic activists have been on the take from Chen Shui-bian. He
wrote: "

你拿了钱，花得好，现在你装聋作哑一声不吭，操你娘的，黑锅却要整个的海外民运来为你背？"
(translation: You took the money and you spent it well, but you are saying
nothing as if you are deaf and dumb. F*ck your mother! The
entire 'overseas democratic movement' now have to bear the burden on your
behalf?").

The issue is this: Are a few, a lot or all the "overseas Chinese
democratic activists" just paid by Chen Shui-bian's government to cause
trouble for the mainland government, even though the Chen Shui-bian
government is a separatist government only interested in hurting the
mainland government and had no interest in democracy or anything else over
there?

(ChineseNewsNet)
When TVBS reported that some of the state secret funds went to overseas
Chinese dissident Wang Dan, he professed to be ignorant because he never
asked where the money comes from. Wang Dan claims that his donation
organizations are all over the world and he has no idea where the money
comes from.

The net outcome from now on is this -- no overseas Chinese dissident can
ever advocate support for Taiwan independence, because the question is: How
much did you get paid for saying that?

[024] Mister
A (11/05/2006) The matter of the case of Mister A (see Chen
Shui-bian, Mister A and Mister B) is the most
solid part of the case against First Lady Wu Shu-chen and a bunch of
relatives, friends and government officials. In brief, the President
along with the indicted persons engaged in a conspiracy to present to the
prosecutor the story of a Mister A who worked on secret diplomatic
missions. Details such as receipts and payments were concocted after
the investigation began. The physical evidence then showed that Mister
A could not done it (namely, he was physically absent from Taiwan on all
fourteen occasions when the others claimed that they personally took receipts from him or
handed him the money in Taipei). Apart from President Chen
(who is immune from criminal charges as sitting president) and his wife, the
other conspirators have all confessed. The relevant charges are
perjury and falsifying documents.

So what did the President have to say about Mister A in his televised
address of November 5? (

... What about the Mister A that people
care about? I am genuinely concerned for his life and family property
right now. Originally, I told the prosecutor that there are many
secrets that I cannot talk about. There are many things that I cannot
talk about upon pain of death. As the prosecutor said, some things
cannot be talked about even from the grave, because they are so
secret. I cannot talk about many things due to the national
interests. Even if someone steals the money from us during the
diplomatic process, we cannot say anything. That is why diplomacy is
so difficult. What can we do? We have a "bad neighbor"
over there and such are "my intentions and considerations."

...
Some people have said that I must apologize on the matter of the secret
diplomatic work of Mister A, no matter whether it was a well-intended or
ill-intended lie. But if the lie was well-intended to cover up secret
diplomacy, then it is understandable. But let us consider the legal
principle of "conflict of obligations." I must consider the
national interests foremost, and therefore I was inconsistent and
contradictory. This led to misunderstanding by the prosecutor, or it
affected the course of justice and the progress of the judicial
investigation. I am willing to apologize for that.

In
order to conceal the secret diplomatic work and protect the national
interests, I dared not tell the prosecutor about certain things that only a
small number of colleagues at the National Security Agency know with respect
to who said what to whom. I had the best of intentions and I was doing
my best. The treatment that I am receiving today and my personal
hardship cannot be understood by you. But it does not matter because
you chose me as your president and I will endure even greater hardship and
grievances.

... I do not want to cling
onto the job. We do not have to wait until the final appeal. If
found guilty on the corruption charge on the initial trial, I will take a
bow and resign!

Listening to the television pundits right now,
there are two points that came out strongly with respect to Mister A.
First, there is a rumor being floated that Mister A is in mainland China and
under the control of the Chinese government. Therefore, he had to send
in the fax to deny any involvement in the secret diplomacy, intelligence
gathering or receiving payment. But the prosecutor's case is made on the basis of the
physical evidence (namely, the dates on the receipts and payment vouchers
compared to his entry/exit records to/from Taiwan). The fax is
supportive but extraneous. The obvious point is
that if Mister A is in big trouble, then who is responsible for putting him
into this position? Who asked him to play this role out of personal
loyalty? That would be the president himself. At a minimum,
the President should have declared categorically Mister A had done none of the
things that
he and his subordinates presented to the prosecutor, as a principle of
personal loyalty. Instead, Mister A is left hanging out there, because
President Chen Shui-bian cannot and will not directly admit that he was part
of a conspiracy to commit perjury. As a reminder, perjury carries a
maximum penlaty of 5 years in prison.

Second, the last translated paragraph is

我不是戀棧職位，不必等到三審定讞，只要司法在一審判決貪污有罪，我立即下台一鞠躬！
("I do not want to cling on to the job. We do not have to wait
until the final appeal. If found guilty on the corruption charge on the
initial trial, I will take a bow and resign!"). Please note that
the charges against Wu Shu-chen are (1) corruption/embezzlement; (2) perjury;
(3) falsification of documents. The proof on the perjury and
falsification of documents seemed incontrovertible in the case of Mister A and a conviction seems
inevitable. So the President just took them out of the equation in his
speech tonight. He promised to quit only if found guilty on the
corruption charge! Even if he committed perjury and falsified documents,
they were justifiable, irrelevant and/or inconsequential. Very deft, indeed.

What about the corruption charge? The prosecutor had scheduled
appointments with the President and his wife for more interviews, but he felt
that it was no longer necessary because he had sufficient evidence to indict
after the other conspirators confessed. His position with respect to the
corruption/embezzlement issue is that the presidential office accounting
department reimbursed the money to Wu Shu-chen on the basis of the falsified
documents and the ultimate application of the money (e.g. secret diplomatic
missions, Red Cross donations, diamond rings, etc) was immaterial. What
do you think? If an accountant took $14 million
from a company and route it to the Red Cross, should she go free?

[023] Horse
Fart Newspaper (11/05/2006) (Ming
Pao) On the morning after the news of the indictment of the
president's wife for embezzlement and falsifying documents, most of the
newspapers printed special sections. At the various convenient stores,
the newspapers were sold out quickly. At 10am, when the reporter went
into a convenience store, the newspaper rack was empty. The salesperson
said that most people were buying several newspapers at the same time.
Certain retail outlets asked the newspapers to print extra copies.
Preliminary estimates are that the circulation was thrice the usual volume.

(ETToday via Yahoo!
News) While almost all of the newspapers in Taiwan carried the
story of the indictments, there was one exception: Youth Daily (published by
the Taiwan military) did not have a single word on the case. When
asked about why this important case was missing, the chief editor said that
this newspaper only reports on the bright side of society and they will not
publish anything that may have political associations or otherwise affect
neutrality. Some legislators are calling this a "horse fart
newspaper (

馬屁報紙)."

[022] Taiwan
By The Numbers (11/05/2006) (China
Times) (703 adults living in Kaohsiung interviewed on the
evening of November 4, 2006. A random sample was initially selected
from the Kaohsiung telephone directory, and then the last two digits of the
selected numbers are randomized)

In late June, Chen Chu (DPP) had a support level of 24%; in mid-October
after the waning of the anti-Bian demonstrations, her support level rose to
31%. After the indictment of Bian's wife, her support level fell to
23%.

In late June, Huang Jun-yin (KMT) had a support level of 35%; in mid-October
after the waning of the anti-Bian demonstrations, his support level was 37%
with little growth. After the indictment of Bian's wife, his support
level rose to 46%.

Meanwhile, Lo Chih-ming (TSU) continued to hold at
around 3% support level.

The accompanying analysis suggests that Chen Chu is now losing the
independents on account of her pro-Bian position. The Bian issue will
not go away soon.

But though we've made much progress, I have one major regret: I took a risk with regard to our action in Iran. It did not work, and for that I assume full responsibility. The goals were worthy. I do not believe it was wrong to try to establish contacts with a country of strategic importance or to try to save lives. And certainly it was not wrong to try to secure freedom for our citizens held in barbaric captivity. But we did not achieve what we wished, and
serious mistakes were made in trying to do so. We will get to the bottom of this, and I will take whatever action is called for. But in debating the past, we must not deny ourselves the successes of the future. Let it never be said of this generation of Americans that we became so obsessed with failure that we refused to take risks that could further the cause of peace and freedom in the world. Much is at stake here, and the Nation and the world are watching to see if we go forward together in the national interest or if we let partisanship weaken us. And let there be no mistake about American policy: We will not sit idly by if our interests or our friends in the Middle East are threatened, nor will we yield to terrorist blackmail.

The above speech was immortalized because it
was made in the passive tense and refused to identify the responsible
person(s). Serious mistakes were made, but by whom? Compare this
to President Chen Shui-bian's statement in the interview with Financial
Times before the prosecutor's office issued the multiple indictments:

Nothing of this seemed to touch Mr Chen. Dodging a question on what damage the string of scandals under his government had done to Taiwans democracy and his political authority, he instead said he and his family had been treated unfairly because of what he called Taiwans excessive press freedom and a lack of responsible reporting.

Only when pondering his own historic legacy did Mr Chen admit some mistakes may have been
made. Even if my family members have made some mistakes, we all have to undergo legal scrutiny, Mr Chen said. Sometimes I feel ashamed and feel this is a loss of face. But isnt this also to be cherished as a sign of Taiwans democracy and rule of
law? Thus personal liabilities become everyones assets.

At this point, it is proper to consider what
the family members actually did. Here is the list from the indictment:

(United
Daily News) Among the receipts submitted for the state secret
fund, the prosecutor discovered purchases of clothing and jewelry (such as
diamond rings). Bian insisted that his family members did not purchase
these items for themselves; even if they purchased the items, these were
gifts for other people. When the prosecutor showed that the diamond
ring was customized for the First Lady, Bian changed his tune and said:
"I used the state secret fund to buy a gift for her." The
prosecutor stated: "Although the state secret fund does not have any
regulations against buying gifts for the First Lady, it ought to fall within
reasonable bounds. Otherwise, the President can give the entire NT$50
million budget to his family.

(United
Daily News) In Wu Shu-chen's part, there were 29 receipts totaling
to more than NT$14.9 million on gifts and luxury items, including
a Tiffany diamond ring costing more than NT$1 million (partially paid for
with a SOGO gift voucher), a diamond ring worth NT$320,000 from Cartier, a
scarf worth more than NT$100,000, a sweater worth NT$60-70,000, a pair of
sunglasses worthy NT$17,000 and other gold jewelry. Neither Bian nor
his wife could explain to whom these 'gifts' were offered.

(United
Daily News; United
Daily News) Among the receipts for reimbursement from the
state secret fund, there were items in which Chen Hsin-yu (the president's
daughter), Chen Chih-chung (the president's son) and Chao Chien-ming (the
president's son-in-law) made purchases of baby products and gift purchases
and dined at restaurants. Among Chen Hsin-yu's items were a NT$44,500
purchase of Disney English-language product and two purchases of NT$38,556
and NT$11,388 of Burberry products. Chao Chien-ming bought a telephone
and a NT$10,000+ goose-feather blanket. Chen Chih-chung had NT$2,488
for law textbooks and NT$11,592 for imported female clothes purchased at
SOGO. The total sum amounted to NT$340,000 plus. In all cases,
they claimed that they did so at the behest of the President. However,
they were unable to say whom the gifts were for and whom they dined
with. In the indictment, it was pointed out that one cannot purchase
gifts for others without knowing their gender, age, position and
preferences. Also, at a meal, it was impossible not to know the names
of the other parties -- some of the meals involved only two persons, and it
would be difficult to have a meal with one other person without knowing
his/her names. In the second interview with the prosecutor, the
president claimed that he asked his family members to entertain certain
people, but he was unable to name anyone. Also, the receipts included
purchases of cashmere scarves worth NT$60,000 or 70,000 as gifts, but the
President and his wife could not name any of the recipients.

(United
Daily News) Given all of the above, the prosecutor
nevertheless decided not to indict Chen Hsin-yu, Chen Chi-chung and Chao
Chien-ming on the grounds that there was no proof that they personally
profited. "It may be that their receipts were used by others. and
they did not speak the truth in order to protect their family
members." But will the three be charged with perjury? The
prosecutor said: "We have not decided." When the reporters
pressed on: "But when they testified, they must know that they were
lying." The prosecutor said that there was no proof of perjury as
such. On behalf of the three, he begged the media to "spare
them." To be more precise, the prosecutor said that just because
he does not believe them is not the same as they had lied, because there is
no proof that they profited. So that was why they have not yet been
indicted for perjury.

Technical Note: These figures are based upon the global industry
standard "Yesterday reading question." This begins with a
question such as, "Have you read or looked into any copy of XXX during
the past 7 days (or 30 days or 3 months)?" If yes, then the next
question is: "When was the last time before today that you read or
looked into any issue of XXX?" The answers are classified as
"Yesterday" or "Before yesterday." Anyone who said
"Yesterday" is then classified as a "reader" and counted
in the above readership figures. The reason that readership today
cannot be considered is that it depends on the time of the interview: If I
interviewed you at noon, you still have a chance to read the newspaper
afterwards. So the standard is about "yesterday
readership." The important thing to note is that this is a
readership study and not a circulation study. It does not matter how
many copies were printed, because the study will only count the number of
people who read it. Some newspaper will get more/less readers per copy
than others.

Disclosure: The ACNielsen Media Index is a member of the global
TGI services, which is offered by KMR. There are about 50 TGI services
from around the world. The ESWN blogger is the Chief Technical
Officer of KMR. However, the blogger has no involvement with the
Taiwan Media Index.

[019] An
Astonishing Essay For General Enjoyment (11/05/2006) (New
Century Net) The Political Tendencies of American Netizens and
Their Favorite Websites. By Huang Zhongwang (

黄钟旺).

[in translation]

Today,
a new market research report about Internet media was released.
According to NetRatings, 36.6% percent of adult Internet users are
supporters of the Republican Party, 30.8% are supporters of the Democratic
Party and another 17.3% are Independent.

In
recent years, political websites are becoming increasing important in
elections. The candidates need the political opinions on the Internet
to maintain their image.

The research
showed that the most popular website for Republican Internet users was
RushLimbaugh.com which was viewed by 84.8% of the people; the number two
and three websites are NewsMax.com and BillO'Reilly.com, which are visited
by 65.4% of the Republic Internet users. The number four and five
websites are respectively DrudgeReport and SaltLakeTribune, used by 59.0%
and 57.9% of the Republic Internet users.

For
the Democratic Internet users, the top three most popular websites are
BlackAmericaWeb.com, AOLBlackVoice and BET.com (Black Entertainment
Television), being watched frequently by 79.9%, 64.8% and 58.6%.

The data for the Democratic Internet users do
not even pass the laugh test, because these are all websites for black
people. Personally, I think that this is a cruel joke that the NCN
editors did not catch.

[018] A
Postscript to the Chizhou Incident (11/05/2006) To understand
this item, you should first review an old post The
Chizhou Incident dated June 25, 2005. Then there is this
update from Xinmin Wanbao via Wenxue
City:

[in translation]

Anhui
province deputy governor He Xinxu was placed under "double
regulations" for corruption. His downfall was connected to his
mistress Xiaohe. On June 17, 2005, He Xinhua was appointed the deputy
governor in Anhui province in charge of the major departments of Political
Law and National Security while still being the Chizhou City party
secretary. On June 25, 2005, He Xinxu was traveling with Xiaohe to the
Jiuhua Mountain resort area to celebrate his promotion. While The boss
was mad because he was interrupted in the middle of his business and threw a
fit. He then turned off his telephone. His dereliction of duty
was one of the reasons that led to his eventual dismissal.

[017] You
May Be Poor, But You Must Still Have News Value (11/04/2006) (Xici
Hutong)

[in translation]

An
impoverished student was accept by a university, but he could not afford the
tuition fees. His parents were trying to borrow money, but no one was
willing to lend money to them . Finally, the naive father went to the media
and hoped that they can help. He was received by a reporter.

The
reporter asked: "Which university was your son accepted by?"
The father said: "Xian. The third group ..."
The reporter said to himself: "It would be better if it were Peking
University or Tsinghua University ..."

The reporter then asked: "Is there anything special about your
son? For example, was he physically handicapped? Did he have an
accident ...?"
The father said: "My son is nothing special. He is healthy and
obedient."
The reporter said to himself: "It would be better if your son were
special."

The reporter then asked: "Then are you both healthy?"
The father said: "We are both healthy."
The reporter said to himself: "It would be better if one of you have
some special physical problem."

Then the reporter asked the final question: "Is your son the first
university student from the village?"
The father said: "No. Three were admitted last year."

After listening to all this, the reporter signed and said: "I cannot
help you. I don't think any reporter can help you."
The father asked: "Why?"
The reporter said: "Because you have no news value."
The father said: "I don't understand."
The reporter said: "You may be poor, but you must still have news
value."

[016] Bloggers Abroad Open Windows to the World
(11/04/2006) (Washington
Post) By Delphine Schrank and Jason Ukman. November 3,
2006.

On his site EastSouthWestNorth, blogger Roland Soong of Hong Kong aggregates vast amounts of material from Chinese news media and posts it quickly. Although the stories he picks up can seem narrow in theme -- and sometimes bizarre -- they speak volumes about today's China.

[015] Taiwan
By The Numbers (11/04/2006) (Era
TV) (835 persons age 20 or older interviewed on the evening of
November 3, using the telephone directory as base to draw a random sample
and then randomizing the last two digits of the telephone numbers).
Here are the main questions:

Q1. The prosecutor announced that First Lady Wu Shu-chen will be charged
with corruption and falsifying documents. Do you believe that
President Chen Shui-bian should resign on his own?Yes: 62%; No: 14%; Don't know/no opinion: 24%

Q3. If President Chen Shui-bian does not resign on his own should
the Legislature have a third vote on the recall of the president?Yes: 56%; No: 27%; Don't know/no opinion: 27%

Q6. Do you believe that the Democratic Progressive Party central
should immediately expel Chen Shui-bian from the party?Yes: 55%; No: 20%; Don't know/no opinion: 25%

(TVBS)
(919 persons age 20 or above interviewed on the evening of November 3, using
the telephone directory as base and randomizing the last four digits of the
telephone numbers)

Q. As a result of the indictment of the First Lady, do you believe that
President Chen Shui-bian should resign?Yes: 62%; No: 15%.

[Historical trend:
May 25 (when the president's son-in-law was detained) 47% said the president
should resign and 35% no.
July 12 (when the president's son-in-law was released on bail) 61% said
Bian should resign and 26% no.
September 11 (three days after the sit-in) 64% said he should resign and 22%
no.
September 18 (after the "siege of Taipei") 63% said Bian should
resign and 23% no.
November 23 (after the First Lady Wu Shu-Chen was indicted), 62% said the
president should resign and 15% no.]

Q: How should President Chen leave his post?He should resign of his own accord: 52%
The Democratic Progressive Party should support the recall vote: 13%
The "Red" army should go into the streets: 1%
The President should finish his term: 21%
No opinion: 13%

(China
Times) (706 adults interviewed on the evening of November 3, using
the telephone directory as base and the randomizing the last four digits of
the telephone numbers)

Q. Are you aware of the indictments in the state funds case?Yes: 72%; No: 28%

Q. Should President Chen Shui-bian resign after the announced
indictments?Yes: 54%; No: 17% [among pan-greens, Yes: 30%; No 44%]

Q. Should the Democratic Progressive Party draw a line between the
President and itself?Yes: 42%; No: 24% [among pan-greens, Yes: 32%; No: 39%]

(United Daily
News) (872 adults (with 469 refusals) interviewed on the evening of
November 3, using the telephone directory as base and randomizing the last
two digits of the telephone numbers)

Rationally speaking in the position of an outsourced cleaning company which
employs 13 women to clean 10 buildings at HK$10 per hour, what would they do
if there is minimum wage legislation at HK$30 per hour? Please be
mindful that they had a ironclad contract to perform cleaning for a fixed
sum of money. The economically rational decision would be to dismiss
something like 8 of the workers and make the remaining most productive
workers do all of the work. So how could this legislation do any
favors for the 8 dismissed workers? That was the substance of the
argument of Sung Hon Sang in Comment
200610#015.

Now each of those buildings have several hundreds of occupants. If you
so much as ask each of them to pay HK$30 extra per month to pay for
additional salaries for the cleaners (by describing the present
circumstances of the cleaners as in the Next Weekly article), there should
not even be a blink. I cannot and will not believe that people can be
so cold-hearted, and HK$30 is the price of a standard roast-pork-and-rice
lunch box (or two) or half the price of a movie ticket. And this
additional income (for example, HK$12,000 = HK$30 x 400 occupants assuming
10 occupants per floor in a 40-floor building) should be enough to cover the
wage increase to HK$30/hour.

The problem here is therefore a procedural one. If the minimum wage
legislation is enacted immediately, then the least productive workers will
be laid off. This outcome does not help those people who needs the
most help. There had better be a full package that protects against
that outcome.

[013]
Positive Spin (11/04/2006) (Southern Metropolis
Daily) In the matter (see Permalink) of the
image of Japanese porn actress Minori Aoi's image being used as nurse in a
Suzhou poster about the World Healthy Cities Alliance Conference, here are
some comments from Chinese blogger

1. Media have become freer as a result.
Newspapers and television all showed the original poster of the Japanese
porn actress. With the Internet probing the edges, the mainstream
media have now followed the lead. What can we do? Eyeballs are
the forces of production.

2. Officials have the lofty spirit of
internationalism. A netizen said: "You may not have seen this
actress, but then have you even seen such a big needle? You take one
look and you know that it is not meant for an injection!" This is
clearly an unprofessional opinion, because an intravenous injection is
obviously that big. Therefore we did not doubt the professional
quality of the health officials. Instead we should praise their spirit
of internationalism.

3. Anything that was not discovered must be
rational. The reporters asked, "If this is an adult video
actress, then the poster must have violated the copyrights on her personal
image?" A person-in-charge said: "If no one asked about
this, then there is no violation of copyrights. Besides, most people
won't be able to recognized who this is." This fantastic logic of
reasoning is the best interpretation of our piracy industry.

4. People have unlimited imagination.
After this affair became public, there were many discussion topics that you
don't whether to laugh or cry about. Apart from the connection between
porn actresses and nurses, the main one is naturally the never-ending nationalistic chauvinism, with people suspecting that the ad producer was a
"Chinese traitor (

汉奸)."
On our Internet, we do not lack talented people!

5. The government is becoming much more
efficient. From the time the local television station reported this
item through the news forums wondering whether Mr. Mao will be
"fixed" by his wife through the finish of the World Healthy Cities
Alliance Conference to the ultimate removal of the poster, it only took one
week. This is a miracle. We request that the relevant department
apply for a Guinness World Record for the quickest response by a government
department in China.

[012]
Media Coverage in Taiwan (11/3/2006) On this day, the
big news in Taiwan is obviously the indictments in the national secret funds
case. As an avid news reader, this is what I found at the principal
sources. The political overtones are less interesting than business
know-how in the Internet age.

(Reuters)
Government prosecutors will file corruption charges against Taiwan's first lady, Wu Shu-chen, along with other officials in the government of President Chen Shui-bian, the high court prosecutor said on Friday.
The high court will charge Chen's wife with corruption, faking evidence and faking documents in the case, involving the misuse of more than T$14.8 million ($448,500) the prosecutor's office said in a statement.
Wu has previously denied any wrongdoing. Others that the prosecutor plans to file charges against include Ma Yong-cheng, a former close aide to Chen, according to the statement.
The filing of charges stems from a case involving Chen and those around him, and their possible under-documented use of funds from a special state affairs budget.

At the online edition of China Times, this was plastered all over the front
page with lengthy stories covering the indictments (including a full document
in PDF format for downloading), background, investigation and reactions.
Comment 200611#010 was summarized
from China Times.

At the online edition of United Daily News, this was also plastered all over
the front page as well.

Apple Daily has a website that does not get updated during the day (that is to
say, the news reports are static for the entire day). On this historical
day, Apple Daily published an extra printed edition as well as updated the
website to include several long stories. In addition, the indictment
documents were also downloadable.

Liberty Times also has a website that does not get updated during the
day. Thus, one cannot find nothing about this development on the
website. Instead, the top story was about the threat against the manager
of the La New Bears baseball team.

So which of these newspapers 'get' the new media landscape?

[011]
Mister A (11/3/2006) (TVBS)
In the item underneath, the Taiwan national secret funds case contains a reference
to six secret diplomatic missions, of which the prosecutor determined one
case to be false.

That particular case is the Southern Route Project. At the time, the
Presidential Office's former bureau chief Tseng Tien-tsu, the First Lady's
friend Lee Bi-chun, Presidential Office manager Lin Te-hsu and Presidential
Office treasurer Chen Cheng-hwei all indicated that NT$6 million had been
spent for the project. When President Chen Shui-bian was interviewed
the first time, he referred to a certain Mister A as the Southern Route
Project's asset. When President Chen Shui-bian was interviewed the
second time, he wrote down the name of Mister A as Taiwan businessman Kung
Chin-yuan.
Subsequently, the investigators summoned Kung Chin-yuan six times for
questioning, but he declined to appear. Finally, Kung Chin-yuan sent
in a fax from overseas to state that "I and my wife have never received
any national secret fees and we have never done anything such as carrying out
the Southern Route Project or collecting intelligence in mainland
China."

With the new information, the prosecutor summoned the four defendants
again. He spoke first to Tseng Tien-tsu and told him about Kung's
statement. At that point, Tseng admitted to falsifying evidence.
Subsequently, Lee Bi-chun, Lin Te-shu and Chen Cheng-hwei all confessed
after realizing that others had confessed.

(China
Times) The investigators said that each of the receipts was
checked from its birthday (the time when it was printed) to its death (when
it entered the Presidential Office). For Mister A, there were 52
receipts, all of which were issued in Taipei at a
time when Mr. A was out of the country according to entry/exit
information. This was evidence that this overseas diplomatic project
was fictional.

[010]
The National Secret Funds Breakthrough (11/3/2006) (China
Times) Five persons were indicted in Taiwan for abuse of national
secret funds: President Chen Shui-bian, his wife Wu Shu-chen, former
President's Deputy Secretary-General Ma Yong-cheng, Presidential Office Manager Lin Te-hsu
and Presidential Office treasurer Chen Cheng-hwei. The latter four will
be prosecuted. But President Chen Shui-bian has immunity given that he is the
current President, so he will be prosecuted once his term expires in 2008
for abuse of funds and falsifying evidence. Two other persons (the
Presidential Office's former bureau Tseng Tien-tsu and the First Lady's
friend Lee Bi-chun) were indicted, but their prosecution have been deferred
for two years pending good behavior.

According to the prosecutor, President Chen Shui-bian was interviewed on
August 7 and October 27 while Wu Shu-chen was interviewed on August 7.
Concerning President Chen Shui-bian's claim that the money was spent on six
secret diplomatic missions, the investigators determined that two missions
existed, one did not exist (concerning a Mr. A) and the other three were
irrelevant to the case of the national secret funds.

Concerning the portion of the indictment about Wu Shu-cheng, it was determined that she
claimed NT$14,800,408 from the national secret funds using the receipts from other people. Lin Te-hsu
and Chen Cheng-wei assisted her to falsify the documentation.

In order to reduce the amount of receipts accounted for by Wu Shu-cheng, it
was claimed falsely to the investigators that NT$9 million had been used for
a Mr A who was working on a secret diplomatic mission on behalf of the
president, and another NT$3.2 million was used in another secret diplomatic
mission ordered by President Chen.

On October 31, the evidence was shown to the accomplices and they admitted
that they had forged the evidence. At that point, the prosecutor
decided that the investigation was concluded and therefore issued the
indictments today. The time of the announcement was 3pm on a Friday,
after the stock market closed at 1:30pm.

In the entire case, a total of NT$26,758,452 in receipts were provided by Wu
Shu-chen to claim money from the national secret funds. Apart from
the money paid to the US public relations company as well as the department
store gift vouchers used to claim for money given to overseas democratic
organizations totaling NT$19,500,055, the rest of the money went to Wu
Shu-chen, who will be charged with abuse of state funds. Wu Chen-yu,
Ma Yong-cheng and Lin Te-hsu were indicted with forgery of documents.
Lin Te-hsu and Chen Cheng-hwei were indicted for forgery of evidence.
President Chen Shui-bian would have been indicted for abuse of state funds
and falsifying evidence except that he has immunity under the constitution.

[009] Fluid
Dynamics (11/02/2006) Fluid moves smoothly and adapts its
shape and velocity in accordance with the environment. November 1 was
the first day that the new regulations about banning certain health-related
advertisements (about male potency products, sexually transmitted diseases,
etc) in newspapers. Beijing
News reviewed the contents of several local newspapers on Day One.

No, those health-related ads did not disappear altogether. Instead,
the advertisers/newspapers are playing word games. Instead of the
former "Professional painless abortion (

专业无痛人流),"
the alternate phrases were "Accidental pregnancy (意外怀孕)?
Please come to XXX" or "Terminate pregnancy (终止妊娠)."
Yes, the newspapers are adapting themselves to the change in the environment
just like fluid.

[008] Next
Media Boss Apologizes About Gillian Chung Photos (11/02/2006)
In August, Next Media's EasyFinder magazine published some sneak photographs
of entertainer Gillian Chung changing her clothes backstage. A
total of 2,621 complaints were received against the magazine.
(Ming Pao;
Ming Pao)
On a cable television show, Next Media boss Jimmy Lai was asked about the
incident. Previously, he had said nothing and it was even rumored that
he was unrepentant. On the show, he apologized for the incident to the
people who are affected. As the chairman of his company, he said that
this may be the time to evaluate what they are doing. The issue is not
solely procedural, but the general practice of news gathering today.
His organization needs to consider whether it wants to maintain its style of
being "sensationalistic, acerbic, even despicable" (

出位、刻薄，甚至賤).

Jimmy Lai is also offering to turn over the film. How were those
photographs taken anyway? If you look at the magazine cover, you will
observe that there is a black background arc above and around Gillian
Chung. Here is the simulated field situation found in EastWeek (issue
#157, August 30, 2006). The windows are now covered by black cloth
from the inside.

[007] Mass
Panic in Yancheng (11/02/2006) (Xian Wanbao via Sohu.com;
Ming Pao)
A citizen claimed that on the morning of October 25, two male elementary
school students were kidnapped by four strangers in front of the
school. Later, the two kidnapped students re-appeared in front of the
school lying unconscious on the ground. Their eyes were covered by
bandage and they had 2,000 RMB in their pockets. Their cornea had been
removed. This was sufficient to cause a total mass panic as parents
watched anxiously over their children all day.

According to the police, there has been no report of any such
incident. According to medical experts, the cornea transplants are
very delicate operations and those skills do not exist in Yancheng.

The public security bureau is investigating where the rumor came from.
Oh, is this the usual bored Internet forum visitor again? No, it was
the local newspaper Kuai Bao (

现代快报).

[006] Taiwan
By The Numbers (11/02/2006) (China
Times/The Journalist) This is a somewhat unusual opinion
poll. The target universe is the 85 legislators from the Democratic
Progressive Party. Of these, 15 could not be reached. Of the 70
that were contacted, 21 declined to participate. Thus, the following
opinion results are based upon 49 DPP legislators.

Q1: If the investigative report about the national security funds shows
that President Chen Shui-bian was involved in corruption, does he have to
quit?- Yes (33)
- No (10)
- Other (6) (e.g. he needs to stop exercising presidential power
immediately)

Q2. If Chen Shui-bian was involved in corruption but refuses to quit,
what do you think should be done?- Recall vote (12)
- Censure vote (3)
- He should know when to stay or leave (14)
- Other (20) [7 said "DPP will take appropriate action"; 4 said
"I've never thought about this" or "This will never
happen")

Q3. If Bian passes but his wife Wu Shu-chen is prosecuted, then does Bian
have to quit?- Yes (13)
- No (14)
- Other (22) (8 said they have to consider factors such as "Did the
president know beforehand?" "Did the president approve?"
"What are the charges?" "Did Wu Shu-jen took the money for
personal expenses?" and so on; 4 said that they will respect Bian's
personal decision; 3 refused to imagine that it was possible for Wu to be
prosecuted and Bian not to be).

More quotes:

"If Wu Shu-chen was really involved, then Chen Shui-bian must
quit. Husband and wife are together in it! I don't believe it
can be separated so cleanly. We are not like the KMT. We demand
the highest moral standard from the president."

"We only know the First Lady's health is not good, and so her thinking
process may be different from ordinary people. Since the constitution
does not spell out that the president should quit because of what his wife
did, we do not have to use the highest moral standard to judge the
president."

"Sometimes the husband does not know what the wife does."

"Why can't we trust the man? He said so himself that he did not
do it."

"Nothing will happen to the president, or else I would quit politics a
long time ago."

"From the beginning, the fairness of the investigators has been
suspect. With the media hyping, the sentence has been pronounced
before the trial. Even if the report comes out, its content cannot be
trusted."

"Being indicted is not the same as being guilty. The judicial
process needs to go through the three stages (initial trial, first appeal
and final appeal). Only then does the DPP have to decide on the
question of whether Chen Shui-bian needs to quit."

"If the president is held accountable for the national security fund,
then how come Ma Ying-jeou was not held accountable for the special
fund? The outside world cannot have double standards for the
opposition and the President."

[004] Media
Worker Gets Punished (11/01/2006) (Ming
Pao) Previously, it was reported an Indonesian national named Yuyun Triyuliarti
was arrested in the Hong Kong's Queen Mary Hospital Intensive Care Unit
wearing a surgical mask and a hidden pinhole camera to take photographs of
entertainment celebrity Lydia Shum (see Comment
200610#028).
In court yesterday, the defendant has pleaded guilty. The magistrate
determined that the defendant had obviously planned the action carefully,
and therefore sentenced her to four weeks in jail.

The 'media worker' in the title refers to a 'worker' for the 'media.'
Specifically, Yuyun Triyuliarti was a domestic helper for a deputy chief
editor at EastWeek. Her employer is presently on leave but not charged
since Yuyun has not said who instructed her to act. The most obvious
speculation is that her employer instructed her to do so, and it will be
morally reprehensible that the employer gets off scott-free. That may
be a legally correct outcome, but it is morally unjust.

[003] I
Love Big Needle (11/01/2006) (Beifang Xinbao via 163.com)
The Second Annual World Healthy Cities Alliance was being held in the city
of Suzhou, October 28-30. The following poster appeared in Suzhou,
showing a smiling nurse holding a big needle. The words say:
"White=dressed guardian angel. Protector of health."
So who is this nurse? Was
this an authorized usage? Or was it intellectual property rights
violation?
It turns out that the photograph was ripped from the Japanese adult video Nurse
Go! Go! (aka I Love Big Needle) and the nurse was Japanese porn
actress Minori Aoi.
After the revelation got posted on the Internet, the poster was taken down
quickly. Here is the really astonishing part -- the reporter knew what
who the nurse was but he just intercepted people in the street. Who is
the nurse? The responses were like: "Well, she looked awfully
familiar. I know I must have seen her somewhere ..."

When
I go out, I hate queues. When I see a long queue, I get intimidated
and I would walk away unless it was unavoidable. What is
unavoidable? For example, IT premiere sales, dining at Open Rice,
testing the Ngong Ping 360 Cable Tram (no Internet ticket sales as yet), etc
seem to require getting on queues. If you want something that is good
or cheap, you will probably have to pay the price of queuing.

Actually,
there are certain unique selling points (either good or cheap) about places
with long queues, or else the consumers will give up because they think it
is a waste of time. Management scholar David Maister believes that the
longer the service time or the higher the price, the longer the customer is
willing to wait. To be frank, as long as the customer thinks he is
getting his money's worth, he has no problem with waiting longer.

I
have tried to read Maister from another angle. If the customer has to
wait longer, is it possible to raise the price (or value)? The
pre-supposition is that the service must have some unique selling points.

Look
at these two examples:

1. A specialist
medical doctor. Specialist R has a densely packed appointment schedule
every day. But he has a habit of always showing up late. R
admitted frankly that he was not being lazy, but he has discovered a
phenomenon. Every time that a patient is made to wait longer, there is
no complaint because the doctor is thought to be delayed on account of ward
tours or meetings. In addition to forgiving him, the patient takes
this as evidence that the doctor is of 'high quality.' In the
patient's view, longer ward tours mean that the doctor has many patients and
this builds up confidence; numerous meetings means that he "must be formidable" in his professional field. Based upon the above
reasons, there is every advantage in being tardy. Indeed, revenues
have increased every year and R adheres to this golden rule.

2.
A single-prostitute brothel. Social worker J handles cases involving
sex workers. One day, she paid a surprise visit to a prostitute who
worked by herself in an apartment. Since it was prime time, the
customers were lined up outside the apartment and so J had to come back
another day. Later, J chatted with the prostitute who said that it was
misleading. Although she was busy that night, she decided to take more
time in her business service and made the customers wait longer. This
had the indirect effect of "advertising" and therefore she can
raise the price. But J pointed out that this prostitute was pretty
good looking.

This proves once more
that there are no noble versus ignoble occupations. There are only
smart and dumb people, and only brains matter.

This reminds me of "Threshold Models of Diversity: Chinese Restaurants, Residential Segregation and the Spiral of
Silence" by Mark Granovetter and Roland Soong ( note: with the footnote
"The authors are listed alphabetically" meaning that Roland Soong is
considered to be the major contributor). In Clifford Clogg, ed., Sociological Methodology , pp. 69-104,
1988 (see Adobe
pdf). Eighteen years later today, that article is tough to read
even for its major contributor. You will have to remember that it was
written in an era in which it was fashionable to talk about dynamical systems,
chaos theory, fractals, self-similarity, etc. The relevant part is about
the "Chinese restaurants" which was not articulated adequately in
the article. Here is the notion: You visit Chinatown and you don't know
which restaurant to go into (because they all look the same). What will
you do? You peek through the windows -- if there is no one inside, then
maybe this is a signal that the restaurant is terrible; if the queue goes
around the block, then no food can possibly justify a two-hour wait;
therefore, you want a restaurant that is neither too vacant nor too
busy. In other words, the length of the queue or the waiting time
becomes a signal for quality.

[001] Learning
Democracy (11/01/2006) In reading the writings of the New
Right intellectuals in China, it has always struck me how much they admired
America. I have always sarcastically noted that if they want America
to be the model for a new China, then they should try to copy
everything. In this previous
post, I noted how the United States regularly interfere in the
domestic affairs of other countries. I asked: "What is this rubbish about autonomy, national
sovereignty and self-determination in democratic countries then?"
This week, there is even a more blatant and systematic example in the
presidential election in Nicaragua on November 5 (CounterPunch):

Nicaragua is currently gearing up for its national elections on Sunday, November 5. For the last year, Nicaragua's complicated electoral panorama has been further convoluted by a string of U.S. representatives endeavoring to ward off an electoral victory by Sandinista (FSLN) leader and former president Daniel Ortega. U.S. officials have publicly censured Ortega, attempted to unify his opposition, and threatened that an Ortega win would endanger U.S. financial support. The continuous intervention, however, has failed to unite Nicaragua's divided right or significantly detract from Ortega's base. Now U.S. meddlers are flustered and desperate in the face of recent polls revealing that Ortega is within a few percentage points of clinching the presidential office.

In a last-ditch effort to undermine Ortega, U.S. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, chairman of the House's International Relations Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation, sent a letter on Friday, October 27, to Michael Chertoff, Secretary of Homeland Security. Rohrabacher enjoined Chertoff "to prepare in accordance with U.S. law, contingency plans to block any further money remittances from being sent to Nicaragua in the event that the FSLN enters government." The nearly half million Nicaraguans currently living in the U.S. send around $500 million each year to their family members in Nicaragua, according to Nicaraguan economist Nestor Avendaño.

...
Rohrabacher's letter is but one voice in a recent cacophony of U.S. meddling. Headlines of the last week have been laden with unsolicited U.S. opinions on Daniel Ortega and the sort of President Nicaraguans should want. The day after Rohrabacher sent his letter, Florida governor Jeb Bush authored a letter published in a La Prensa paid ad. Bush's letter declares that Nicaraguans must choose between a "tragic step towards the past," which he identifies as the "totalitarianism" of the Sandinistas, and "a vision towards the future." Jeb Bush's own vision for Nicaragua's future is revealed at the bottom of the ad, where the Alianza Liberal Nicaraguense party, which is running the U.S.-preferred presidential candidate Eduardo Montealegre, is named as the ad's sponsor.

Just a few pages away from Bush's ad appears an article in which Adolfo Franco, USAID's Assistant Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean, warns that a FSLN victory next week could limit USAID support for Nicaragua, citing worries that Daniel Ortega might significantly alter Nicaragua's current economic model. USAID's admonition piggybacks on US Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez's more explicit pressure in an interview publicized one week earlier. Gutierrez threatened that an Ortega win could preclude a $230 million combined investment from three foreign companies that would generate 123,000 jobs, a $220 million aid package promised through the
Millennium Challenge Account, and implementation of CAFTA in Nicaragua.

On October 29, the day after printing Jeb Bush's letter, La Prensa published an editorial by Otto Reich, former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, in which he accuses the FSLN of maintaining ties with terrorist groups, a claim that Reich does not attempt to substantiate. Though Reich does not currently hold a position in the U.S. government, he writes as if he does, stating, "If the Sandinistas control the government of Nicaragua, there will be strong pressure in Washington to review all aspects of the bilateral relationship, including remittances." Reich equates a Sandinista victory with "a return to a past of poverty and international isolation." Such a dismal outcome indeed seems likely if the U.S., as the party responsible for the isolation of the past, would implement Reich's thinly cloaked threat of aid and remittance cutoffs.

Ironically, Reich precedes all the above statements with the disclaimer, "No one can tell [Nicaraguans] who to vote for." Jeb Bush, Adolfo Franco, and other outspoken U.S. figures have similarly acknowledged Nicaraguans' sovereign right to pick their own leaders. Unfortunately, such statements come across as meaningless niceties when subsequently contradicted with threats and admonishments against choosing a president not to the U.S.'s liking. As Nicaraguans make their way to the polls on Sunday, they must not only consider "What will this candidate do for my country if elected?" but also "What will the U.S. do to my country if this candidate is elected?" The product of relentless outside interference, this sad reality is profoundly undemocratic.